woman
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A human female use to do housework.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wuumuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwʊmən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A human female employed to do housework
An adult female person (as opposed to a man)
“The woman kept house while the man hunted.”
A female person who plays a significant role (wife or mistress or girlfriend) in the life of a particular man
“He was faithful to his woman.”
A female person, usually an adult: a (generally adult) female sentient being, whether human, supernatural, elf, alien, etc.
A wife (or sometimes a fiancée or girlfriend).
A female person who is extremely fond of or devoted to a specified type of thing. (Used as the last element of a compound.)
verb
To staff with female labor.
transitive
To make effeminate or womanish.
transitive
To furnish with, or unite to, a woman.
transitive
To call (a person) "woman" in a disrespectful fashion.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A human female employed to do housework
Used this way, woman is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- charwoman , used mainly in Regional English
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Human / femalenoun
“He was faithful to his woman.”
Adultnoun
“The woman kept house while the man hunted.”
More ways to use woman
- “The woman kept house while the man hunted.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The worship of women.
A man who is aggressive in making amorous advances to women.
A misanthrope who dislikes women in particular.
A wife who manages a household while her husband earns the family income.
A woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money.
A female homosexual.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The body of an adult woman.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.