Woman

A woman is an adult female human being, as contrasted with a man, an adult male, and a girl, a female child. The term woman (irregular plural: women) is used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions, or both.

Terms

The English language's original word for "woman" was Old English wīf, akin to German Weib; it later became the modern word "wife." The modern word "woman" etymologically derives from wīfmann, with the addition of mann, "person", from Germanic mannaz. This formation is peculiar to English. The equivalents for "man" in Old English were wer (a cognate of Latin vir, "man") and wǣpnedmann, literally "weaponed person". As previously mentioned, the term man continues to carry its original sense of "Human", though this usage results in an asymmetry which is sometimes criticized as sexist.

Related Topics:
English language - Old English - Etymological - Mannaz - Human

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The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex"; it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. Nowadays girl is also often used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman. Since the early 1970s, feminists have challenged such usage, and today, using the word in the workplace (as in office girl) is typically considered inappropriate in the United States and United Kingdom because it implies a view of women as infantile. The use remains commonplace in several other English-speaking countries.

Related Topics:
16th century - Child - 1970s - Inappropriate - United States - United Kingdom - English-speaking

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Conversely, in certain non-Western cultures which link family honor with female virginity, the word girl is still used to refer to a never-married woman; in this sense it is used in a fashion roughly analogous to the obsolete English maid or maiden. Referring to an unmarried female as woman can, in such a culture, imply that she is sexually experienced, which would be an insult to her family.

Related Topics:
Honor - Virginity

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In more informal settings, the use of girl to refer to an adult female is also common practice in certain usage (such as girls' night out), even among elderly women. In this sense, girl may be considered to be the analogue to the British word bloke for a man. Some regard non-parallel usages, such as men and girls, as offensive.

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There are various words used to refer to the quality of being a woman. The term "womanhood" merely means the state of being a woman; "femininity" is used to refer to a set of supposedly typical female qualities associated with a certain attitude to gender roles; "womanliness" is like "feminity", but is usually associated with a different view of gender rôles; "femaleness" is a general term, but is often used as shorthand for "human femaleness"; "distaff" is an archaic adjective derived from women's conventional rôle as a spinner, now used only as a deliberate archaism; "muliebrity" is a neologism meant to provide a female counterpart of "virility", but used very loosely, sometimes to mean merely "womanhood", sometimes "femininity", and sometimes even as a collective term for women.

Related Topics:
Gender role - Archaism - Muliebrity - Virility

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Slang

There are also many slang terms to refer to women; these have existed throughout history, and change over time. Some of those common in contemporary usage are:

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• Babe: A more appelative-like way to address a woman. More commonly said to a partner, in a similar way to "honey".
• Bird: outdated British English, most women see it as demeaning. Also commonly used in modern Ireland where it is not considered very demeaning.
• Bitch: originally, and still widely used as, a pejorative term, this is used more casually in some communities in the U.K. (and in the U.S., in ebonics , and even affectionately, especially between women ).
• Chick: literally a young chicken or young bird of any kind, this term is mildly offensive to some women who interpret it to be infantilizing or objectifying; it is chiefly an Americanism. It is sometimes claimed that the usage derives from the Spanish chica (girl), but neither the Oxford English Dictionary nor Merriam-Webster supports this derivation. The word chick was used in a gender-neutral sense to mean "human child" at least as early as the 14th century. The popularity of the usage in North America may, nonetheless, be due in part to its similarity to the Spanish word.
• Hen: Scottish term used to address women. It is also used in the term "hen party".
• Sister: a term which women rarely use when addressing each other; it is associated with, although by no means exclusive to, African American idiom. The same term is used within feminism, and among transwomen communities.
• Sheila: used in Australia, becoming outdated in favour of more American terminologies.

Several older terms used by men, such as broad or skirt, are now archaic, and rarely encountered.

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Authors often create new euphemisms or other terms to refer to women, an example being the use of the word burger on the American television sitcom The Cosby Show to refer to an attractive female.

Related Topics:
Burger - American - Television - Sitcom - The Cosby Show

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Vulgar terms

In some cultural groups, terms considered extremely offensive to most women (e.g., bitch, cunt, or ho) are used to refer to women in general. Many terms that refer to women's physical appearance (e.g., hottie, a sexually attractive woman) see wide use, but many consider them to imply sexual objectification, although many heterosexual women use hunk to describe an equivalent man.

Related Topics:
Bitch - Cunt - Ho - Sexual objectification

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