female

adj

1. (not-comparable, usually)Belonging to the sex which typically produces eggs (ova), or to the gender which is typically associated with it.

   “female authors, the leading male and female artists, a female bird cooing at a male”

   “Twice in her thirty-year career she held office in the blacksmiths' guild. Ms. [Fya] upper Bach was no fluke, either: legal and guild records from medieval Germany list other female blacksmiths, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, and pewterers. Some of these redoubtable women gained entry into the guild through "widow's rights"; others, however, made it on sheer mettle and muscle.”

   “I turned to [gender-fluid] Alex. "Hey, are you female today? [...] The Skofnung Sword [...] can't be drawn in the presence of women."”

   “Some mentioned factional tensions and bullying within the party involving other female MSPs.”

2. (not-comparable, usually)Characteristic of this sex/gender. (Compare feminine, womanly.)

   “stereotypically female pastimes, an insect with typically female coloration”

   “A travelling shot of a harbour view near Sydney's White Bay moves into a domestic interior as a female voice says, 'There was nowhere else to live except alone.'”

   “More than that, we cannot find the same dynamics within female career trajectories as in the other two country groups, because the time-structure of female and male careers already shows great similarity within the older generation of elites. In addition, the pattern of the relation between female and male careers remains the same over time.”

3. (not-comparable, usually)Tending to lead to or regulate the development of sexual characteristics typical of this sex.

   “the female chromosome”

   “estrogen, the primary female sex hormone, is produced by both females and males”

4. (feminine, form-of, not-comparable, usually)Feminine; of the feminine grammatical gender.

   “The teacher's voice inflects the pulse of nêhiyawêwin as he teaches us. He says a prayer in the first class. Nouns, we learn, have a gender. In French, nouns are male or female, but in Cree, nouns are living or non-living, animate or inanimate.”

   “If you are describing a female noun, you must make the adjective feminine by adding an 'e'. If you describe a male noun, you add an 'er'. For neutral nouns you add an 'es'.”

5. (not-comparable, usually)Lacking the F factor, and able to receive DNA from another bacterium which does have this factor (a male).

   “In this process, one bacterium designated the male bacterium transfers its DNA into the female bacterium. Bacteria are determined to be male or female by a small piece of DNA, called F-plasmid, or sex factor. Bacteria with this small piece of DNA are labeled as males, and bacteria that do not have this factor are considered females.”

6. (figuratively, not-comparable, usually)Having an internal socket, as in a connector or pipe fitting.

   “A ground-joint union is made in three separate pieces and is used for joining two pipes. It consists of two machined pieces with female pipe threads, which are screwed on the pipes to be united, and a threaded collar which holds the two pieces of the union together.”

noun

1. One of the female (feminine) sex or gender.

   “Accumulated data indicate that in all species of sharks, the females grow larger than the males.”

2. (proscribed, sometimes)One of the female (feminine) sex or gender.

   “It would be years sometimes ere he saw the face of a female, and when he did, that face would not be overangelic.”

   “XY female patients with gonadal dysgenesis are sometimes referred to as “XY sex-reversed” patients or individuals with “XY sex reversal” (Simpson and Martin, 1981). Although widely used, this terminology is somewhat vague as it does not distinguish XY females with gonadal dysgenesis from XY females with androgen resistance.”

3. One of the female (feminine) sex or gender.
4. A bacterium which lacks the F factor, and is able to receive DNA from another bacterium which has that factor.

   “During mating, F+ male bacteria transfer the F factor to the recipient females, transforming them into F+ males.”

5. A female connector, pipe fitting, etc.

   “These are the most common type, as they join females of the same diameter together. […] For example, you may need an adapter such as a 3-in. pipe thread (a common thread used to join pipes) female to 2 1⁄2 NH male.”