femme
/fɛm/
femme noun: a woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl.
Noun
femme (plural femmes)
- A woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl.
- Then I turned to him and said, "O my lord, I have that to propose to thee wherein thou must not cross me; and this it is that, when we reach Baghdad, my native city, I offer thee my life as thy handmaiden in holy matrimony, and thou shalt be to me baron and I will be femme to thee."1885, Richard Francis Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 18
- Theodore J. Flicker and George Kirgo have penned a good script in which Elvis is played off against four femmes […].1983, Variety's Film Reviews: 1964–1967
- A lesbian or other queer woman whose appearance, identity etc. is seen as feminine as opposed to butch.
- Near-synonym: lipstick lesbian (sometimes differentiated)
- Some of the most political dykes in town had already converted, tossing out their Levi's and Birkenstocks in favor of poodle skirts and heels. It was no longer a question of butch vs. femme, liberations vs. oppression. Clothes did not unmake the woman; clothes were just clothes.1986 [1984], Armistead Maupin, Babycakes (Tales of the City), pages 64–65
- A person whose gender is feminine-leaning, such as a feminine non-binary person.
- The same is true of Goddess Spirituality spaces which are predicated on Radical Feminist rhetorics about Nature and the embodied experience – even those spaces which are open to trans women and nonbinary femmes may still fall back on language about the womb …2018, Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries (Lee Harrington, Tai Fenix Kulystin), page 79
- […] there is no story of Black pain deeper than that of Black fat women and femmes. […]
¹ Gender expansive for women, femmes, and nonbinary folks.2019, The Lemonade Reader: Beyoncé, Black Feminism and Spirituality (Kinitra D. Brooks, Kameelah L. Martin)
- An effeminate or gay man.
- All I know is in this outfit I feel like a total femme! You know what? I don't have a problem with that.1993 September 11, “Operation Double 007”, in Mystery Science Theater 3000, spoken by Tom Servo
- "He's a femme."
"A what?"
"A femme," he repeats, louder this time. "Or didn't you notice the bony legs and fluffy hair? I bet he even had a manicure!"
"You're jealous," I retort.
"Jealous?" Randy huffs. "Of a fag?"2001 April 26, Lisa M. Tillmann-Healy, Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 19
Adjective
femme (comparative more femme, superlative most femme)
- Pertaining to a femme; feminine, female.
- Admittedly, Kiedis was concerned about the lack of femme rockers on the bill: the only women featured were in British band Lush, who would open each day's festivities before a few hundred curious onlookers.2009, Jeff Apter, Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story
- High heels are something like neckties for women, in that it can be harder to look both formal and femme without them.2019 March 20, Summer Brennan, “Sex, power, oppression: why women wear high heels”, in The Guardian
- Effeminate (of a man).
- Characteristic of a feminine lesbian or queer woman.
- Her style was more femme than butch.
- "We want to base our relationships on who we are now, not who we once were" says radical femme bisexual Linda Moore.1992, Deneuve
- Antonyms:
- butch
Verb
femme (third-person singular simple present femmes, present participle femming, simple past and past participle femmed)
- To feminize.
- […] a fear of being shamed and accused by other men of being feminine or inadequately masculine. I sometimes use the term fear of being femmed to describe the general anxiety or homophobia that Kimmel describes. It is worth repeating that homophobia, or the fear of being femmed, is not necessarily...2011, Michael E. Addis, Invisible Men: Men's Inner Lives and the Consequences of Silence, page 195
- “Aside from the major surgeries, and this Karen woman, all the roles that keep the programme going are filled by Dorley graduates.” She twirls a finger in the air. “We’re an endless loop: girls femming girls femming girls. A snake biting its own tail.”2024, Alyson Greaves, Welcome to Dorley Hall
Examples of femme in a sentence
- “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real butch?”1993, Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues, Los Angeles: Alyson Books, published 2003, →ISBN, page 32:
- Jordan-Zachery offers two dominant scripts that are often written onto Black women's, femmes', and girls' bodies: The Ass and Strong Black Woman scripts.2019, Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag (Julia S. Jordan-Zachery, Duchess Harris), page 21
- [...] and any person who might partake in feminine expression (cis and trans women and men, nonbinary femmes...).2019, Kristen J. Sollee, Cat Call: Reclaiming the Feral Feminine, page xvii:
- In comparison to butch bisexual women, it may be easier for femme bisexual women to locate male and female dating partners […]2007, Beth A. Firestein, Becoming Visible: Counseling Bisexuals Across the Lifespan, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 305:
Synonyms of femme
- fem
- lipstick lesbian[lipstick lesbian
Antonyms
Forms of femme
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | femmes |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more femme |
| superlative | most femme |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | femmes |
| present participle | femming |
| past participle | femmed |
| past | femmed |
Origin of femme
From Middle English femme, itself borrowed from Old French fame (whence French femme), from Latin femina (“woman”). Doublet of feme, femina, and hembra.
Words formed from femme
Phrases with femme
Words that rhyme with femme
Questions about femme
- What does femme mean?
- Femme means a woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl.
- How do you use femme in a sentence?
- “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real butch?”
- What part of speech is femme?
- Femme can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce femme?
- Femme is pronounced /fɛm/.
- What is the plural of femme?
- The plural of femme is femmes.
Words near femme in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: femme (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-femme.wav.
Cite this entry: “femme.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/femme. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.