feminism
/ˈfɛmɪnɪz(ə)m/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.85 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
4
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A social theory or political movement which argues that legal and social restrictions on women must be removed in order to bring about equality of the sexes in all aspects of public and private life.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Women are still forbidden to smoke there... Ardent though we are in feminism, we applaud this stand..."
- "There are by now many feminisms (Tong, 1989; Humm, 1992). Alongside and often overlapping with older-identified distinctions between liberal, socialist, radical and cultural feminisms, for example (important as they are in their different accounts of sexual difference and gender power), are variously named black, third-world ethnic-minority feminisms, themselves far from homogenous."
- "Ooh! “Even the ladies!” #feminism #confedera-she !"
- "His hair is delicate and silky, and of a light chesnut[sic]—one of M. Lorrain's signs of feminism."
Etymology
From French féminisme circa 1837, ultimately from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina (“woman”). In the original sense of “women's movement or advocacy”, the French word was probably directly derived from fēmina, as if from Neo-Latin feminismus. First recorded in English in 1851, originally meaning “the state of being feminine”. Sense of “advocacy of women's rights” is from 1895.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: *dʰeh₁(y)-, féminisme, fēminīnus
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈfɛmɪnɪz(ə)m/