woman
Plural: women
Noun
- An adult human female.
- an adult female person (as opposed to a man)
- "the woman kept house while the man hunted"
- a female person who plays a significant role (wife or mistress or girlfriend) in the life of a particular man
- "he was faithful to his woman"
- a human female employed to do housework
- "I have a woman who comes in four hours a day while I write"
- women as a class
- "it's an insult to American womanhood"
- "woman is the glory of creation"
- An adult female human.
- All female humans collectively; womankind.
- A female person, usually an adult: a (generally adult) female sentient being, whether human, supernatural, elf, alien, etc.
- A wife (or sometimes a fiancée or girlfriend).
- A female person who is extremely fond of or devoted to a specified type of thing. (Used as the last element of a compound.)
- A female attendant or servant.
Verb
Verb Forms: womaned, womaning, womans
- To play the part of a woman, or provide with women.
- To staff with female labor.
- To make effeminate or womanish.
- To furnish with, or unite to, a woman.
- To call (a person) "woman" in a disrespectful fashion.
Examples
- She played WOMAN across the double word score, feeling powerful and strategic.
- The play required him to WOMAN the lead role, a challenging word game in itself.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English womman, wimman, wifman, from Old English wīfmann (“woman”, literally “female person”), a compound of wīf (“woman, female”, whence English wife) + mann (“person, human being”, whence English man). For details on the pronunciation and spelling history, see the usage notes below.
Cognate with Scots woman, weman (“woman”), Saterland Frisian Wieuwmoanske (“female person, female human, woman”). Similar constructions can be found in West Frisian frommes (“woman, girl”) (from frou and minske, literally "woman human").
A few alternative spellings (see below) respell the term so as not to contain man.
Synonyms
adult female, char, charwoman, cleaning lady, cleaning woman, fair sex, womanhood, babe, baggage, bim, bint, bird, bitch, blone, broad, chick, covess, dame, donna, female, feme, femme, femoid, frau, frow, gal, gentlelady, ginch, hen, ho, huwoman, lady, maness, more at Thesaurus:woman, mort, mulier, placket, pussy, queen, she, sheila, skirt, squaw, thot, twist, tía, vaginoid, wan, wife, wimmin, woman, wommon, womon, womxn, womyn
Scrabble Score: 10
woman: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordwoman: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
woman: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary