Fe·male, a.
 1. Belonging to the sex which conceives and gives birth to young, or (in a wider sense) which produces ova; not male.
 As patient as the female dove
 When that her golden couplets are disclosed.   --Shak.
 2. Belonging to an individual of the female sex; characteristic of woman; feminine; as, female tenderness. “Female usurpation.”
    To the generous decision of a female mind, we owe the discovery of America.   --Belknap.
 3. Bot. Having pistils and no stamens; pistillate; or, in cryptogamous plants, capable of receiving fertilization.
 Female rhymes Pros., double rhymes, or rhymes (called in French feminine rhymes because they end in e weak, or feminine) in which two syllables, an accented and an unaccented one, correspond at the end of each line.
 Note: ☞ A rhyme, in which the final syllables only agree (strain, complain) is called a male rhyme; one in which the two final syllables of each verse agree, the last being short (motion, ocean), is called female.
 -- Female screw, the spiral-threaded cavity into which another, or male, screw turns.  --Nicholson.
 Female fern Bot., a common species of fern with large decompound fronds (Asplenium Filixfæmina), growing in many countries; lady fern.
 Note: ☞ The names male fern and female fern were anciently given to two common ferns; but it is now understood that neither has any sexual character.
 Syn: -- Female, Feminine.
 Usage: We apply female to the sex or individual, as opposed to male; also, to the distinctive belongings of women; as, female dress, female form, female character, etc.; feminine, to things appropriate to, or affected by, women; as, feminine studies, employments, accomplishments, etc. “Female applies to sex rather than gender, and is a physiological rather than a grammatical term. Feminine applies to gender rather than sex, and is grammatical rather than physiological.”

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