English

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Etymology

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From woman and women; respelled so as not to contain the word man/men. Compare myn.

Noun

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womyn (plural womyn or wymyn)

  1. (rare) Feminist spelling of woman.
    • 1980, Susan J Wolfe, Julia Penelope, The coming out stories:
      Summoning all my courage, I touched and kissed a womyn for the first time. I cannot describe what I felt at that moment.
    • 2004, Misty Marie, I Too was a Child...:
      I dug with my bare hands through the bullshit where beneath I discovered a womyn. She was an incredibly angry womyn, but a womyn nonetheless.
  2. (rare, nonstandard) Feminist spelling of women.
    • 1983, Anita Cornwell, Black Lesbian in White America:
      And I'm sure you know that so many straight womyn are so miserable that "going to the shrink" has become their major occupation, if they can afford it.
    • 1991 December 22, Davina Anne Gabriel, “Still More On Michigan”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 23, page 4:
      Likewise, simply dismissing post-operative male-to-female transsexuals as "men," and making an artificial distinction between "women" and "womyn" neither justifies their policy, nor eliminates any of the substantive issues involved.
    • 1995, Sol Steinmetz, “Womyn: The Evidence”, in American Speech, volume 70, number 4, page 430:
      Since the publication of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary (RHWCD) in the spring of 1991, no single dictionary entry has been the subject of more discussion, criticism, and controversy than the entry womyn (an alternative spelling of women).

Derived terms

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See also

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