femmeとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

Borrowed from French femme (“woman”). Doublet of feme, femina, and hembra.

発音

• IPA: /fɛm/, but /fɑm/ as a French word.
• 韻: -ɛm
• Homophone: fem

名詞

femme (plural femmes)

1. A woman, a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl. [from 19th c.]
   • 1885, Richard Francis Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 18:

     Then I turned to him and said, "O my lord, I have that to propose to thee wherein thou must not cross me; and this it is that, when we reach Baghdad, my native city, I offer thee my life as thy handmaiden in holy matrimony, and thou shalt be to me baron and I will be femme to thee."

   • 1983, Variety's Film Reviews: 1964–1967:

     Theodore J. Flicker and George Kirgo have penned a good script in which Elvis is played off against four femmes […].

2. (LGBTQ) A lesbian or other queer woman whose appearance, identity etc. is seen as feminine as opposed to butch. [from 20th c.]

   Synonym: (less common) fem

   Antonym: butch

   • 1986 [1984], Armistead Maupin, Babycakes (Tales of the City), pages 64–65:

     Some of the most political dykes in town had already converted, tossing out their Levi's and Birkenstocks in favor of poodle skirts and heels. It was no longer a question of butch vs. femme, liberations vs. oppression. Clothes did not unmake the woman; clothes were just clothes.

   • 1993, Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues, Los Angeles: Alyson Books, published 2003, →ISBN, page 32:

     Monique whispered something to a butch sitting near her. The butch crossed the room and approached our table. “Hey,” she called to me. I didn't look up. “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real butch?”

   • 1997, Bi Academic Intervention, Bisexual Imaginary: Representation, Identity, and Desire, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 207:

     Given the myth that lesbian femmes will eventually leave their butches for men, there is an understandable unwillingness to acknowledge bisexual femmes, who really might do it — as indeed they have every right to.

   • 2013, Michelle Gibson, Deborah Meem, Femme/Butch, page 103:

     I love butches, though. I dated a femme once. That was wrong on so many levels.

3. (LGBTQ, less common) A person whose gender is feminine-leaning, such as a feminine non-binary person.

   Coordinate term: masc

   • 2018, Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries (Lee Harrington, Tai Fenix Kulystin), page 79:

     The same is true of Goddess Spirituality spaces which are predicated on Radical Feminist rhetorics about Nature and the embodied experience – even those spaces which are open to trans women and nonbinary femmes may still fall back on language about the womb [...]

   • 2019, The Lemonade Reader: Beyoncé, Black Feminism and Spirituality (Kinitra D. Brooks, Kameelah L. Martin):

     […] there is no story of Black pain deeper than that of Black fat women and femmes. […]

     Gender expansive for women, femmes, and nonbinary folks.

   • 2019, Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag (Julia S. Jordan-Zachery, Duchess Harris), page 21:

     Jordan-Zachery offers two dominant scripts that are often written onto Black women's, femmes', and girls' bodies: The Ass and Strong Black Woman scripts.

   • 2019, Kristen J. Sollee, Cat Call: Reclaiming the Feral Feminine, page xvii:

     [...] and any person who might partake in feminine expression (cis and trans women and men, nonbinary femmes...).

関連する語

• en femme

形容詞

femme (comparative more femme, superlative most femme)

1. (chiefly Canada, US, journalism, entertainment) Pertaining to a femme; feminine, female. [from 20th c.]
   • 2009, Jeff Apter, Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story:

     Admittedly, Kiedis was concerned about the lack of femme rockers on the bill: the only women featured were in British band Lush, who would open each day's festivities before a few hundred curious onlookers.

   • 2019 March 20, Summer Brennan, “Sex, power, oppression: why women wear high heels”, in The Guardian‎:

     High heels are something like neckties for women, in that it can be harder to look both formal and femme without them.

2. (chiefly derogatory) Effeminate (of a man). [from 20th c.]
3. Characteristic of a feminine lesbian or queer woman. [from 20th c.]

   Antonym: butch

   Her style was more femme than butch.

   • 1992, Deneuve:

     "We want to base our relationships on who we are now, not who we once were" says radical femme bisexual Linda Moore.

   • 2007, Beth A. Firestein, Becoming Visible: Counseling Bisexuals Across the Lifespan, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 305:

     In comparison to butch bisexual women, it may be easier for femme bisexual women to locate male and female dating partners […]

派生語

参考