femme means pertaining to a femme; feminine, female. It carries an Arena rating of 1446, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, femme ranks #3,292 of 17,123 for Most Malleable Words, #6,146 of 17,120 for Most Beautiful Words, #6,464 of 17,116 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #8,554 of 17,122 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
femme is pronounced /fɛm/.
Why “femme” is a great word
An identity or aesthetic that centers a cultivated, often performative, femininity, specifically within lesbian and queer contexts. From the French femme ("woman"), from the Old French feme, from the Latin femina ("woman, female"), from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁- ("to suckle"). Unlike the general descriptor "feminine," or its complementary counterpoint "butch," "femme" carries specific cultural weight as a deliberate, community-grounded act of self-creation. It is the strategic glamour of red lips in a hostile bar, the gentle strength in the drape of a silk kimono, the defiant click of heels on protest pavement—a chosen armor and a soft, unyielding truth, proving that the most luminous forms of womanhood are forged in the fire of self-definition.
Etymology
Borrowed from French femme (“woman”). Doublet of feme, femina, and hembra.
adj
- Pertaining to a femme; feminine, female.
- Effeminate (of a man).
- Characteristic of a feminine lesbian or queer woman.e.g.“Her style was more femme than butch.”
noun
- A woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl.
- A lesbian or other queer woman whose appearance, identity etc. is seen as feminine as opposed to butch.e.g.“Near-synonym: lipstick lesbian (sometimes differentiated)”
- A person whose gender is feminine-leaning, such as a feminine non-binary person.
Words closest in meaning
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