feminize

English

Alternative forms

• femininize, femininise, feminise

Etymology

From Latin fēmina (“woman, female”) +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɛmɪnaɪz/

Verb

feminize (third-person singular simple present feminizes, present participle feminizing, simple past and past participle feminized)

1. (transitive) To make (more) feminine.
   • 1962, Human Intersex, D J B Ashley:

     Parabiosis experiments on primitive vertebrates showed inversion of sex in either direction, males were feminized and females masculinized.

   • 2000, Deborah Payne Fisk, The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, page 202:

     The comedies work in very obvious ways to feminize this socially-ominous triad of young fops, old lechers, and greedy businessmen.

   • 2014, A. D. Cousins, Shakespeare's Sonnets and Narrative Poems, →ISBN, page 84:

     For a start, it feminizes Tarquin by drawing on the conventional gendering of the human soul as female (Donne's 'Batter my heart . . .' offers an obvious but interesting comparison), and implies that his physical assault on Lucrece has both offended against his own body and contaminated, almost violated, his spiritual and 'female' self. Rape has almost been self-rape.

   • 2018 May 31, Emanuella Grinberg, “What is medically necessary treatment for gender-affirming health care?”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     Surgical interventions for gender dysphoria, according to WPATH, can include feminizing or masculinizing hormone therapy, voice therapy, chest augmentation and reduction, or genital surgery.

2. (intransitive) To become (more) feminine.

Synonyms

• femalize

Antonyms

• masculinize, masculinise
• masculize, masculise

Derived terms

• feminization

Translations

to make (more) feminine

• Arabic: أَنَّثَ (ʔannaṯa)
• Catalan: feminitzar (ca)
• Finnish: naisellistaa
• French: féminiser (fr)
• Galician: feminizar (gl)
• German: feminisieren, verweiblichen (de)
• Greek: εκθηλύνω (el) (ekthilýno)
• Hungarian: nőiessé tesz
• Italian: femminilizzare (it)
• Korean: 여성화(女性化)하다 (yeoseonghwahada)
• Polish: feminizować (pl) impf, sfeminizować (pl) pf, ukobiecać impf, ukobiecić pf
• Portuguese: feminizar (pt)
• Spanish: feminizar
• Swedish: feminisera (sv)

to become (more) feminine

• Catalan: feminitzar-se (ca)
• Finnish: naisellistua, naisistua
• Galician: feminizarse (gl)
• German: feminisieren, verweiblichen (de)
• Greek: εκθηλύνομαι (el) (ekthilýnomai)
• Korean: 여성화(女性化)되다 (yeoseonghwadoeda)
• Polish: sfeminizować się (pl) pf, ukobiecić się pf
• Portuguese: feminizarse
• Spanish: feminizarse
• Swedish: feminiseras (sv)

Galician

Verb

feminize

1. (reintegrationist norm) inflection of feminizar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Portuguese

Verb

feminize

1. inflection of feminizar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative