femme

noun

1. A woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl.

   “Then I turned to him and said, "O my lord, I have that to propose to thee wherein thou must not cross me; and this it is that, when we reach Baghdad, my native city, I offer thee my life as thy handmaiden in holy matrimony, and thou shalt be to me baron and I will be femme to thee."”

   “Theodore J. Flicker and George Kirgo have penned a good script in which Elvis is played off against four femmes […].”

2. A lesbian or other queer woman whose appearance, identity etc. is seen as feminine as opposed to butch.

   “Near-synonym: lipstick lesbian (sometimes differentiated)”

   “Some of the most political dykes in town had already converted, tossing out their Levi's and Birkenstocks in favor of poodle skirts and heels. It was no longer a question of butch vs. femme, liberations vs. oppression. Clothes did not unmake the woman; clothes were just clothes.”

   “Monique whispered something to a butch sitting near her. The butch crossed the room and approached our table. “Hey,” she called to me. I didn't look up. “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real butch?””

   “Given the myth that lesbian femmes will eventually leave their butches for men, there is an understandable unwillingness to acknowledge bisexual femmes, who really might do it — as indeed they have every right to.”

   “I love butches, though. I dated a femme once. That was wrong on so many levels.”

3. (uncommon)A person whose gender is feminine-leaning, such as a feminine non-binary person.

   “The same is true of Goddess Spirituality spaces which are predicated on Radical Feminist rhetorics about Nature and the embodied experience – even those spaces which are open to trans women and nonbinary femmes may still fall back on language about the womb …”

   “[…] there is no story of Black pain deeper than that of Black fat women and femmes. […] ¹ Gender expansive for women, femmes, and nonbinary folks.”

   “Jordan-Zachery offers two dominant scripts that are often written onto Black women's, femmes', and girls' bodies: The Ass and Strong Black Woman scripts.”

   “[...] and any person who might partake in feminine expression (cis and trans women and men, nonbinary femmes...).”

adj

1. (Canada, US)Pertaining to a femme; feminine, female.

   “Admittedly, Kiedis was concerned about the lack of femme rockers on the bill: the only women featured were in British band Lush, who would open each day's festivities before a few hundred curious onlookers.”

   “High heels are something like neckties for women, in that it can be harder to look both formal and femme without them.”

2. (derogatory)Effeminate (of a man).
3. Characteristic of a feminine lesbian or queer woman.

   “Her style was more femme than butch.”

   “"We want to base our relationships on who we are now, not who we once were" says radical femme bisexual Linda Moore.”

   “In comparison to butch bisexual women, it may be easier for femme bisexual women to locate male and female dating partners […]”