What does unwoman mean?
Unwoman is a rare English noun with a strongly disparaging historical meaning: a woman considered unfeminine, coarse, fierce, mannish, or otherwise deficient according to conventional ideas of womanhood. It belongs to the same semantic family as unwomanly, but “unwoman” is more explicitly insulting because it denies the person’s status as a woman rather than merely describing her behavior or appearance as lacking conventional femininity. The word can also suggest a woman whose independence or refusal of accepted roles is perceived as making her somehow less authentically female. Historically, it was used to police women’s behavior and social roles, especially in literature and political or moral commentary. It is not a neutral descriptor and has little place in ordinary modern English outside quotations, historical writing, or discussion of the term itself. Its unusual plural, unwomen, retains the exceptional plural pattern associated with woman and women. The word is chiefly interesting today as an example of how gendered language has historically reinforced restrictive ideas about women.
nounAn archaic, disparaging term for a woman regarded as lacking conventionally feminine qualities, especially one perceived as fierce, coarse, mannish, or unfeminine.
- A disparaging historical term for a woman characterized as unwomanly, especially one perceived as fierce, coarse, or mannish.
"The old play brands the fiercely independent duchess an “unwoman.”"
"Contemporary critics dismissed her public authority by calling her an “unwoman.”"
"Set in the nineteenth century, the novel portrays the formidable landlady as an “unwoman” who refuses every social convention."
An irregular plural that preserves the exceptional plural pattern of woman and women.
"The critics portrayed the two formidable sisters as unwomen who could not be confined to conventional roles."
Its plural, “unwomen,” follows one of English’s strangest but most familiar patterns: woman becomes women, even when prefixed with un-.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does unwoman come from?
Unwoman was formed in early modern English from the prefix un-, meaning “not” or the reverse of, and the noun woman. It developed as a derogatory term for a woman regarded as failing conventional standards of femininity. Its formation parallels the related words womanhood, womanlike, and womanly, all of which belong to the productive English family based on woman.
Related word forms
How unwoman is actually used
Archaic, literary, and strongly disparaging. It labels a woman as failing an imagined standard of femininity and should normally appear in historical, critical, or explicitly marked contexts.