Talk:feminine

Etymology of feminine
I discovered an argument that "feminine" might instead come from "femur" meaning "thigh" (note its Latin plural was "femina", the same word for woman in Latin): http://www.europaic.com/Etymology%20of%20L.%20femina%20and%20L.%20fellare.htm

Instead, most sources say that "feminine" comes from "fellare", but the article linked above makes a good argument otherwise. Would it be prudent to include this alternative etymology? 130.85.58.236 21:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August–November 2013
RFV of the adverb section. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but I can't think of how this could be used as an adverb (rather than an adjective), and so have a hard time searching for examples of use. turns up nothing relevant, compared to.


 * The adverb is femininely surely? Spinning Spark  08:45, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's defined as an adjective too (of or pretaining to...) Mglovesfun (talk) 12:58, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * How is that relevant to the adverb sense? Spinning Spark  16:33, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Very. He’s talking about the adverb sense. — Ungoliant (Falai) 16:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * has enough hits. — Ungoliant (Falai) 16:37, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * ...the most feminine scoring group of males is an adverb on scoring.
 * Martin looks the most feminine is an adverb on looks. Spinning Spark  17:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I can't see the last citation: is it saying Martin gazes at things in a most feminine way? Or is it saying that Martin seems feminine? Almost any adjective can be used with the latter sense of "looks". I can find examples of "Roger says nothing but looks obdurate", and even discussions of things that "look adjectival" and "look adverbial" (lol!).
 * "Behaving feminine" ... well, I'll yield if others are convinced, but it seems to me that many adjectives can be used after "behaving", too: "behaving beautiful" gets a few pages of hits, "behaved dumb" gets a few, even "behaving contrarian" gets one. - -sche (discuss) 20:40, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The best illustration of how look functions here is to use an adverb-adjective pair to substitute for feminine, and see which one looks right: "Martin looks the most happy" vs. "Martin looks the most happily". The same goes for behave: "behaving happy" is a little unusual, but it works. If you try "behaving happily", the meaning shifts- it's another way of saying "behaving, and in a happy manner". As for "the most feminine scoring group of males": it doesn't help that it's suffering from Hyphen-Deficit Disorder, but imagine a test whose results range from "happy" to "sad", and compare "the most happy[-]scoring group of males" with "the most happily[-]scoring group of males". In all of these, we're dealing with stative constructions: the subject isn't doing, the subject is being. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:55, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * RFV-failed. - -sche (discuss) 08:13, 1 November 2013 (UTC)