Word.ws English Dictionary

femsplaining

femsplaining noun: the explanation of feminist concepts, often to a man in a condescending and rude manner. Also the present participle and gerund of femsplain.

Noun

femsplaining (uncountable)

  1. The explanation of feminist concepts, often to a man in a condescending and rude manner.
    • I do want to experience Feminist Boredom—when femsplaining and fem… doing (?) become periodically recursive and repetitive, but in a nice vacationy way that is very much a part of working toward something—and Feminist Arrogance, which is fun and about just deciding that everyone who doesn’t know...2013 March 4, Kate Carraway, “Feminist Fatigue”, in Vice
    • The femsplaining continues throughout the movie, as the girls point out how offensive and problematic sexist frat humor can be.2016 May 18, “More Comedies Should Be As Progressive About Feminism and Gay Relationships as 'Neighbors 2'”, in Screen Crush
  2. An often condescending explanation by a woman to a man of topics that the she assumes he does not understand.
    • Mansplaining is a bit of this year’s wombspeak, a coinage of great self-satisfaction and smugness which attempts to put down reconciling reality to facts, naming fables when they are fables, and contesting any of the dogmas of the enlightened sisterhood, as mere condescension from the other gender....2014 December 27, Rex Murphy, “The year in activist feminism”, in National Post
    • The fact of the matter is that women are given so little leverage to be as boring and patronising as men in the office, home or parliament, we don't really have as much evidence of femsplaining as we do mansplaining. Thus, femsplaining remains a myth, much like the gender pay gap and female orgasm.2015 February 4, Amy Gray, The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    womansplaining

Also used as

femsplaining is also the present participle and gerund of femsplain.

Examples of femsplaining in a sentence

  • The singer insulted million of US voters who hold a different political view, but was unapologetic about her femsplaining.2016 November 19, James Draper, “Fifth Harmony's Lauren Jauregui comes out as bisexual in SCATHING rant against Donald Trump voters”, in...
  • It should be paired with “femsplaining” which is of course pure unshampooed truth — as determined, of course, by when and if it works for the cause.2014 December 27, Rex Murphy, “The year in activist feminism”, in National Post:
  • No man can freely express themselves if they speak in fear of being accused of mansplaining which is, I would suggest, as prevalent as femsplaining.2016 May 12, “No, there is no such thing as 'mansplaining'”, in Daily Telegraph:

Synonyms of femsplaining

Origin of femsplaining

Patterned after mansplaining.

Questions about femsplaining

What does femsplaining mean?
Femsplaining means the explanation of feminist concepts, often to a man in a condescending and rude manner.
How do you use femsplaining in a sentence?
The singer insulted million of US voters who hold a different political view, but was unapologetic about her femsplaining.
What part of speech is femsplaining?
Femsplaining is a noun.

Words near femsplaining in the dictionary

  1. femspeak
  2. femsplain
  3. femsplained
  4. femsplainer
  5. femsplainers
  6. femsplaining
  7. femsplains
  8. femstruate
  9. femstruated
  10. femstruates
  11. femstruating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: femsplaining (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.

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Cite this entry: “femsplaining.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/femsplaining. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.