Dictionary

delta female en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A relatively low-status woman in the sociosexual hierarchy, (ranking below alpha, beta, and gamma females, but above omega females).
   • In plain English, the alpha female is telling her beta-mate that she wants this Debbie girl, who will be very much a delta female, to take up the spare room in their flat, since her parents have cast her out in the snow. 2012, Malcolm Macdonald, Strange Music:
   • There are only two types of Delta Female who have ever successfully captured the Alpha Male! 2019, Ruby Wax, How Do You Want Me?, page 144:
   • If a DSM “lets herself go”—the phrase is one of the most horrible in the Delta female's lexicon—Mother will regard it as a reflection on herself. 2009, Gayden Metcalfe, Some Day You'll Thank Me for This:
2. A female animal that ranks fourth in the social hierarchy.
   • The beta female approaches the delta female who sits with an infant at her chest. 2013, Leonard A. Rosenblum, Primate Behavior: Developments in Field and Laboratory Research, page 308:
   • It is interesting to note in this regard that the alpha female slapped the beta female, but only displayed toward the delta female. 1973, Folia Primatologica, page 460:
   • The alpha female moves through the tree and sits next to the delta female; she reaches for her infant, but the delta female turns her back. 1968 June, Frank E. Poirier, “The Nilgiri langur (Presbytis johnii) mother-infant dyad”, in Primates, volume 9:

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