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

EnglishEdit

EtymologyEdit

Clipping of feminine

PronunciationEdit

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

NounEdit

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, ...

AdjectiveEdit

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 termsEdit

AnagramsEdit

CatalanEdit

PronunciationEdit

Etymology 1Edit

From Latin fimum.

NounEdit

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 termsEdit

Etymology 2Edit

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

VerbEdit

fem

  1. first-person plural present indicative form of fer
  2. first-person plural present subjunctive form of fer
  3. first-person plural imperative form of fer

Further readingEdit

DanishEdit

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

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

NumeralEdit

fem

  1. five

ElfdalianEdit

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

EtymologyEdit

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

NumeralEdit

fem

  1. five

FrenchEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

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 quote)

Norwegian BokmålEdit

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

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

NumeralEdit

fem

  1. five

Derived termsEdit

Related termsEdit

ReferencesEdit

Norwegian NynorskEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Old Norse fimm (five).

NumeralEdit

fem

  1. five

Derived termsEdit

Related termsEdit

ReferencesEdit

RomanschEdit

Alternative formsEdit

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

EtymologyEdit

From Latin fūmus.

NounEdit

fem m

  1. (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) smoke

SwedishEdit

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

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

NumeralEdit

fem

  1. five

Coordinate termsEdit

Related termsEdit

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

VolapükEdit

EtymologyEdit

Borrowed from English fermentation.

NounEdit

fem (nominative plural fems)

  1. fermentation

DeclensionEdit