Word.ws English Dictionary

womansplaining

womansplaining is the present participle and gerund of womansplain.

Meaning of womansplain

Verb

womansplain (third-person singular simple present womansplains, present participle womansplaining, simple past and past participle womansplained)

  1. Synonym of femsplain.
    • To me, the “Blank Space” video is basically the Citizen Kane of ironic misandry, a fourth-wave feminist fad that Amanda Hess articulately womansplained in a Slate article a few months ago.2014 December 16, Lindsay Zoladz, “The Music Club, 2014”, in Slate Magazine
    Synonyms:
    femsplain

Noun

womansplaining (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, informal) Condescending explanation of something by a woman, particularly to a man.
    • The War on Women perpetrators keep trying to tell us that government not funding something equates to government banning something. That must be womansplaining, I guess? Except I’m not willing to have women made out to be idiots. So maybe “liberalsplaining.”2015, Joy Pullmann, quoted by "David C Kifer", Tolerance (on newsgroup alt.quotations)
    • Womansplaining: When a woman incorrectly explains something, but you're not allowed to tell her without being accused of mansplaining.2015, "Chris Davis", quoted by Emily Crane, The moment that left the new Prime Minister scratching his head: Tanya Plibersek accuses Malcolm Turnbull of 'mansplaining' during Question Time… but what...
    Synonyms:
    femsplaining

Synonyms of womansplaining

Origin of womansplaining

Blend of woman + explaining, modelled on mansplaining.

Questions about womansplaining

What does womansplaining mean?
Womansplaining means condescending explanation of something by a woman, particularly to a man.
What is womansplaining the present participle and gerund of?
Womansplaining is the present participle and gerund of womansplain.
What part of speech is womansplaining?
Womansplaining is a noun.

Words near womansplaining in the dictionary

  1. womanslaughter
  2. womanslayer
  3. womanspeak
  4. womansplain
  5. womansplained
  6. womansplaining
  7. womansplains
  8. womanspreading
  9. womanthrope
  10. womanthropes
  11. womantic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: womansplaining (page history and authors); womansplain (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: “womansplaining.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/womansplaining. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.