See also: femme, FEM, fém, fem., and fem-

English edit

Etymology edit

Clipping of feminine

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /fɛm/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛm

Noun edit

fem (plural fems)

  1. (LGBT, uncommon) Synonym of femme
    Antonym: butch
    • 2014, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Madeline D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, Routledge, →ISBN:
      Oral history gave them an opportunity to share their vision of the world across generations, while giving us a chance to imagine the pleasure and pain of daily life for butches and fems in an earlier period.
  2. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A feminine or effeminate person.
    • 2014, D Shuckerow, Take off your masc: The hegemonic gay male's gender performance on Grindr, quoting someone on Grindr:
      "Versatile, but love to bottom [...] No divas or fems. Not homophobic at all, just my personal preference."
    • 2018, Luis Menéndez-Antuña, Thinking Sex with the Great Whore: Deviant Sexualities and Empire in the Book of Revelation, Routledge, →ISBN:
      [...] chasers looking for silver daddies, exec types for college jocks, straights for gays, fems for mascs, smooths for hairies, huskies for slims, blacks for Latinos, whites for Asians, straights for gays, white collars for blue collars, ...

Adjective edit

fem (comparative more fem, superlative most fem)

  1. (colloquial) Feminine, effeminate.
    Antonym: masc
  2. (LGBT) Synonym of femme
    Antonym: butch
    • 2007, Cameron McCarthy, Globalizing Cultural Studies: Ethnographic Interventions in Theory, Method, and Policy, Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 79:
      Dozens of queers, including female to male/male to female transsexuals, leathers, bears and bisexuals, butch and fem lesbians, []

Derived terms edit

Anagrams edit

Catalan edit

Etymology 1 edit

Inherited from Latin fimum.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

fem m (plural fems)

  1. dung
  2. (chiefly in the plural) manure (animal excrement used as fertilizer)
  3. (in the plural, especially Balearics) rubbish
    Synonym: escombraries
Related terms edit

Etymology 2 edit

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Alternative forms edit

  • (Balearic) feim (indicative), facem (subjunctive, imperative)

Pronunciation edit

Verb edit

fem

  1. inflection of fer:
    1. first-person plural present indicative/subjunctive
    2. first-person plural imperative

Further reading edit

Danish edit

Danish cardinal numbers
 <  4 5 6  > 
    Cardinal : fem
    Ordinal : femte

Etymology edit

From Old Norse fimm, from Proto-Germanic *fimf, from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (five).

Pronunciation edit

Numeral edit

fem

  1. five

Elfdalian edit

Elfdalian cardinal numbers
 <  4 5 6  > 
    Cardinal : fem
    Ordinal : femt

Etymology edit

From Old Norse fimm, from Proto-Germanic *fimf. Cognate with Swedish fem.

Numeral edit

fem

  1. five

French edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from English femme, fem (with the rarer spelling borrowed to avoid ambiguity with French femme (woman)). English fem is itself from French femme.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

fem f (plural fems)

  1. a femme (feminine queer woman) (contrast butch)
    • 2007, Wendy Delorme, Quatrième génération, Bernard Grasset, pages 23–24:
      Pour faire simple, une fem (prononcer « faime ») c’est une gouine qui n’a rien contre les jupes, les talons hauts, le vernis à ongles et le maquillage. [] On confond parfois les fems avec les lipstick lesbiennes, les charmantes saphiques éthérées comme on en a vu à la fin des années 90 dans les pubs Dior, Benetton et Versace. [] Les fems ont ça de différent des lipstick lesbiennes que notre féminité n’est pas un passe-droit pour d’intégrer, mais au contraire le drapeau de la subversion.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Norwegian Bokmål edit

Norwegian Bokmål cardinal numbers
 <  4 5 6  > 
    Cardinal : fem
    Ordinal : femte

Etymology edit

From Old Norse fimm (five), from Proto-Germanic *fimf, ultimately from *pémpe, variant of Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe.

Pronunciation edit

Numeral edit

fem

  1. five

Derived terms edit

Related terms edit

References edit

Norwegian Nynorsk edit

Norwegian Nynorsk cardinal numbers
 <  4 5 6  > 
    Cardinal : fem
    Ordinal : femte

Etymology edit

From Old Norse fimm (five).

Numeral edit

fem

  1. five

Derived terms edit

References edit

Romansch edit

Alternative forms edit

  • fim (Rumantsch Grischun)
  • füm (Puter, Vallader)

Etymology edit

From Latin fūmus.

Noun edit

fem m

  1. (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) smoke

Swedish edit

Swedish numbers (edit)
50
 ←  4 5 6  → 
    Cardinal: fem
    Ordinal: femte
    Ordinal abbreviation: 5:e
    Multiplier: femfaldig
    Fractional: femtedel

Etymology edit

From Old Norse fimm (five), from Proto-Germanic *fimf, ultimately from *pémpe, variant of Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe.

Pronunciation edit

Numeral edit

fem

  1. five

Coordinate terms edit

Related terms edit

See also edit

References edit

Volapük edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from English fermentation.

Noun edit

fem (nominative plural fems)

  1. fermentation

Declension edit