Word.ws English Dictionary

womanspreading

womanspreading noun: the practice of women taking up extra space on public transport, for example by sitting with splayed legs or bringing large garments or bags.

Noun

womanspreading (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, informal) The practice of women taking up extra space on public transport, for example by sitting with splayed legs or bringing large garments or bags.
    • Our manspreading went off without incident[…]. Womanspreading was a different prospect entirely, to the spreader, it felt rude and physically provocative. People opposite stared[…].2015 January 9, Evening Standard
    • Germaine Greer’s natural pose is legs apart, womanspreading, in a skirt, giving people a full facial.2015 November 5, Evening Standard

Examples of womanspreading in a sentence

  • In contemporary parlance, we have manspreading but not womanspreading.2018, Rosie White, Television Comedy and Femininity: Queering Gender (Library of Gender and Popular Culture 9), London; New York, N.Y....
  • She is expected to be sexually and emotionally attracted to men, must have long hair, and should cross her legs when sitting (no womanspreading on public transit!).2019, Manon Tremblay, “Introduction”, in Queering Representation: LGBTQ People and Electoral Politics in Canada, UBC Press, →ISBN, page 14:
  • Just want to thank Colin Fleming for his op-ed on womanspreading (“Can we talk about womanspreading?” Nov. 12).2019 November 14, Daily News:
  • In fact, you could call them the ultimate in womanspreading.2019 September 13, Evening Standard:

Origin of womanspreading

From woman + spreading, modelled on earlier manspreading.

Questions about womanspreading

What does womanspreading mean?
Womanspreading means the practice of women taking up extra space on public transport, for example by sitting with splayed legs or bringing large garments or bags.
How do you use womanspreading in a sentence?
In contemporary parlance, we have manspreading but not womanspreading.
What part of speech is womanspreading?
Womanspreading is a noun.

Words near womanspreading in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: womanspreading (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: “womanspreading.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/womanspreading. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.