Dictionary

womanize en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /ˈwʊmənaɪz/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *wībą Proto-West Germanic *wīb Old English wīf Proto-Indo-European *mon- Proto-Germanic *mann- Proto-West Germanic *mann Old English mann Old English wīfmann Middle English womman English woman Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English womanize From woman + -ize.

Meanings

1. (intransitive, said of a man) To flirt with or seduce, or attempt to seduce, women, especially lecherously.
2. (figuratively, transitive, usually) To turn into a woman; to feminize.
   • [T]his effeminate loue of a wõman, doth ſo womanize a man, that (if hee yeeld to it) it will not onely make him an Amazon; but a launder, a diſtaff-ſpinner; or what ſo euer other vile occupation their idle heads can imagin and their weake hands performe. a. 1587, Philip Sidney, “The First Booke”, in [Mary Sidney], editor, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia […] [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1593, →OCLC, folio 23, verso:
   • Another bolt passed between Iucharba's legs, nearly womanizing him with its blast of heat. "EEEeeeYOW!" he howled. 2000, Randy Lee Eickhoff, The sorrows, page 84:
   • Samson himself is a gender paradox: while the focus on his hair links him with the women he pursues, it is also the source of his masculine strength, whose loss womanizes him. 2000, Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible, page 104:
   • Love for a woman was believed to produce an especially dangerous kind of effeminacy. Following this line of thinking, Musidorus charges that Pyrocles' infatuation threatens to 'womanize' him 2008, Wendy Olmsted, The Imperfect Friend: Emotion and Rhetoric in Sidney, Milton and their Contexts:

Forms

Deriveds

womanizer · womaniser · dewomanize

Translations (2)

he הִתְפַּרְפֵּר (seduce women lecherously) · es donjuanear (seduce women lecherously)