heroine

Etymology 1
From, from late (2nd century), a feminine equivalent of , equivalent to.
 * English from 1587. The sense of "female lead character" is from 1715.

Noun

 * 1) A female hero.
 * 2) A female lead character.

Usage notes

 * In sense 1, hero, the masculine of heroine, is sometimes used, though it is still acceptable to use the feminine.
 * She is an American hero (or heroine).


 * Like feminine nouns formed with the suffix -ess, heroine refers only to females, whereas hero can refer to both males and females.
 * Who is your favorite hero? (answer can refer to either gender)
 * Who is your favorite heroine? (answer can refer only to females)

Translations

 * Albanian: trime, trimëneshë
 * Arabic: بَطَلَة
 * Armenian:
 * Belarusian: гераі́ня
 * Bengali:
 * Bulgarian: герои́ня, юнаки́ня
 * Catalan:
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin: 女英雄, 女主角, ,
 * Czech:
 * Danish: heltinde
 * Dutch:
 * Esperanto: heroino
 * Estonian: kangelanna
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * Georgian: გმირი ქალი
 * German: ,
 * Greek: ,
 * Ancient: ἡρωίς, ἡρωίνη
 * Hindi:
 * Hungarian:
 * Ido:
 * Irish: banlaoch, banghaiscíoch
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:, , 烈女
 * Khmer:, វីរនារី
 * Korean: 히로인, 여자영웅
 * Latvian: varone
 * Lithuanian:
 * Macedonian: херои́на, јунакиња
 * Malay:
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål:
 * Nynorsk: heltinne
 * Occitan:
 * Pashto: اتله
 * Persian:
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese:
 * Romanian:
 * Russian:
 * Scottish Gaelic: bana-ghaisgeach
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Cyrillic: јуна̀киња, херои́на
 * Roman: ,
 * Slovak:
 * Slovene: junakinja, heroina
 * Spanish:
 * Swedish:
 * Thai:
 * Turkish:
 * Ukrainian: герої́ня
 * Vietnamese: anh thư (nữ anh hùng)
 * Welsh: gwrones
 * West Frisian: heldinne
 * Yiddish: העלדין
 * Zazaki: sherdara

Etymology 2
Partly from the noun and partly from.

Adjective

 * 1)  Characteristic of a heroine; heroic.