muliebrity

Definition

The state or quality of being a woman; the features of a woman's nature; femininity, womanhood.

Etymology

From Late Latin muliebritās (“womanhood; womanliness”), from Latin muliēbris (“feminine, womanly”) + -tās (suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being); or from muliēbris + -ity; compare Middle French muliebrité. Muliēbris is derived from mulier (“woman; wife”) (from mollior (“softer; milder; weaker”), comparative form of mollis (“soft; mild, tender; weak”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mel- (“soft; tender; weak”)) + -brīs (noun suffix denoting a person).

Example Sentences

• "The Ladies of Rhodes hearing that you have loſt, / A capitoll part of your Lady ware, / Haue made their petition to Cupid, / To plague you aboue all other, / As one preiuditiall to their muliebritie."
• "[I]n the devising, hammering, forging and composing of the Woman, she hath had a much tenderer regard, and by a great deal more respectful heed to the delightful Consortship, and sociable Delectation of the Man, than to the Perfection and Accomplishment of the individual Womanishness, or Muliebrity."
• "The second of the ravishing voices I have heard was, as I have said, that of another German woman. […] it had so much woman in it,—muliebrity, as well as femineity; […]"

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