Adjective: effeminate
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more effeminate |
| Superlative | most effeminate |
Sample Sentences
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An effeminate and unmanly foppery. [1759, Richard Hurd, Moral and Political Dialogues:]
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The Comte d'Artois had neither the dignified nor the manly air of his brother—he rather appeared like a pretty-looking girl, so effeminate was he and fair. [1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 125:]
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Gentle, kind, effeminate remorse. [c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:]
Adjectives inflected like effeminate
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Middle English effeminat, effemynat, from Latin effēminātus, past participle of effēminō, from fēmina (“woman”).