‖ femme
(fam)
[Fr.]
1. Woman, wife. rare. In the U.S. colloq. (with pronunc. (fɛm)), girl. Also, a lesbian who adopts a passive, feminine role (opp. butch n.1).
| 1814 Byron Jrnl. 16 Jan. (1875) 361 Divorce ruins the poor femme. 1928 J. P. McEvoy Showgirl iv. 52 Eight femmes and a pair of male hoofers take up the burden when she is off. 1936 Nat. Geogr. Mag. LXIX. 778/2 West Point slang... A young lady is a ‘femme’ or ‘fem’. 1944 [see brush v.2 5 b]. 1961 W. Brown Bedeviled 71 A step upward on the social ladder are the female transvestites and their ‘femmes’ who congregate in the ‘gay’ bars of Greenwich Village. 1966 [see butch n.1]. |
2. In Fr. combinations. femme de ménage (fam də menaʒ), a charwoman, or domestic help; femme du monde (fam dy mɔ̃d), a woman of the world; femme fatale (fam fatal), a dangerously attractive woman; femme incomprise (fam ɛ̃kɔ̃priz), a woman who is misunderstood or not truly appreciated.
| 1849 Thackeray Pendennis I. xxiii. 217 Miss Amory is a femme incomprise. 1870 Mrs. Ogier Ward Jrnl. 16 Nov. in Outside Paris (1871) 41 To cook for them..I am obliged to hire a femme de menage. 1885 A. Edwards Girton Girl II. iii. 35 Poor Linda must practise many a humiliating economy in her lot of femme incomprise. 1894 W. James Let. 24 Jan. in R. B. Perry Tht. & Char. W. James (1935) II. 188 His wife was a femme du monde, however, and fully made up for his lack of conversation. c 1903 Wyndham Lewis Let. (1963) 10 At this studio there is a femme de menage that does your room. 1912 G. B. Shaw Let. 19 Aug. (1952) 39 Here I saw a Femme Fatale who was a fine figure of a woman. 1913 D. H. Lawrence Sons & Lovers xii. 318 The dormant woman was the femme incomprise. 1919 C. Mackenzie Sylvia & Michael iii. 71 If she did not know what Eliane was, she might easily have mistaken her for a femme du monde like herself. 1924 Femme fatale [see blah n.]. 1936 E. H. W. Meyerstein Let. 7 Jan. (1959) 180 As if these gay twitterers, like the eternal femme incomprise, refused to impart the secrets of their being to any! 1938 Times Lit. Suppl. 28 May 371/1 A pretty femme fatale who lost her head. 1944 W. S. Maugham Razor's Edge i. 36 There's no better education for a young man than to become the lover of a woman of a certain age and..if she's..a femme du monde..it would immediately give him a situation in Paris. 1954 M. F. Rodell Mystery Fiction ix. 56 Whirling in a high-powered car from Monte Carlo to Cap d'Antibes on the trail of an exotically beautiful femme fatale. 1955 E. Pound Section: Rock-Drill lxxxvi. 26 ‘Le prussien c'est un chic homme.’ Said the aged femme de ménage with four teeth out. |