From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfemalefe‧male1 /ˈfiːmeɪl/ ●●● S3 W2 adjective 1 relating to women or girls OPP male → feminine female voters Over half of the staff are female.2 HBAbelonging to the sex that can have babies or produce eggs OPP male a female spider3 HBPa female plant or flower produces fruit OPP male4 technicalDT a female part of a piece of equipment has holes into which the male part can be fitted OPP male
Examples from the Corpus
female• What about the differences between the male and female brain?• Emma is the only female lawyer that the firm has ever employed.• Five female officers remain on the 78-member force; two of them, including Ferguson, are on leave.• I remember watching a whole flock of female phalaropes badgering a poor male so intensely he almost drowned.• Patience and kindness are often seen as female qualities.• the female reproductive system• Many women reject the traditional female roles of wife and mother.• A string of female rulers, from Boudicca to Margaret Thatcher, gives the lie to that idea.• Among female singers, Jessye Norman has a highly enthusiastic following, in part because opera appearances are rare.• Notice the distinguishing marks of the female spider.• Female students tend to get better grades than male students.• In Tokyo, the number of female taxi drivers is up 75% since 1972.• He used five female volunteers who knew the experiment was taking place.femalefemale2 ●●● W3 noun [countable] 1 HBAan animal that belongs to the sex that can have babies or produce eggs OPP male2 WOMANa woman or girl OPP male As a group, females performed better on the test than males.► see thesaurus at woman3 a plant that produces flowers or fruit OPP maleExamples from the Corpus
female• Adult males came in at 10 hours a week, adult females and college students at 9 hours, teen-agers at 7.• The co-operation is understandable in evolutionary terms as the males and females in a single-female syconium are brothers and sisters.• Was this the treatment Roman meted out to any female who presumed a little too much, grew a little too possessive?• Each species chooses to exploit the senses that its females are best at detecting.• The male then chases the female away.• One of the females put the last tray on a trolley and wheeled it past Masklin.• The female of the species performs her mating dance.• The trained females who have calves at foot keep their young with them as they work.Origin female2 (1300-1400) Old French femelle (influenced by male), from Latin femella “girl” 