unwoman

unwoman verb: to deprive of feminine qualities, or of the status of womanhood; to unsex.

Verb

unwoman (third-person singular simple present unwomans, present participle unwomaning or unwomanning, simple past and past participle unwomaned or unwomanned)

(transitive) To deprive of feminine qualities, or of the status of womanhood; to unsex.
- ‘[…] My love, so please you, shall requite
  No woman, whether dark or bright,
  Unwomaned if she be.’1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Romaunt of the Page”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 163
- Not all her anxiety for Arthur, not all her personal wretchedness, could unwoman the minister’s mother so much as to make her forgive or overlook Phœbe’s presumption.1863, Margaret Oliphant, chapter 21, in Salem Chapel, volume 2, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, page 22

unwoman (plural unwomen)

A woman devoid of rights, recognition, or typical female characteristics; a female unperson.
- By allowing herself and her unborn child to be executed, effectively she is permitting an abortion and by extension, becoming an “unwoman.”2020, Sarah E. Maier, Brenda Ayres, Neo-Victorian Madness, page 140

I say that he unwomans me, because he doesn’t do the man’s work in the home, and I have to—somebody has to! […]”1972, Pearl S. Buck, “Thoughts of a Woman at Christmas”, in Once Upon a Christmas, New York: John Day, page 115:
The muslin dress unwomans her, a crude navy blue […] which buttons at the nape of her neck and drops past her knees in stiff irregular folds.1976, Susan Yankowitz, Silent Witness, New York: Knopf, Part Three, p. 141:

Verb
third-person singular present	unwomans
present participle	unwomaning
present participle	unwomanning
past participle	unwomaned
past	unwomaned
past participle	unwomanned
past	unwomanned
Noun
plural	unwomen

From un- + woman.

What does unwoman mean?: Unwoman means to deprive of feminine qualities, or of the status of womanhood; to unsex.
How do you use unwoman in a sentence?: I say that he unwomans me, because he doesn’t do the man’s work in the home, and I have to—somebody has to! […]”
What part of speech is unwoman?: Unwoman can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of unwoman?: The past tense of unwoman is unwomaned.

Adapted from Wiktionary: unwoman (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: 2026-09-02

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