EFFEMINATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does effeminate mean? 

• EFFEMINATE (adjective)
  The adjective EFFEMINATE has 1 sense:

1. having unsuitable feminine qualities

  Familiarity information: EFFEMINATE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EFFEMINATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having unsuitable feminine qualities

Synonyms:

cissy; effeminate; emasculate; epicene; sissified; sissy; sissyish

Similar:

unmanful; unmanlike; unmanly (not possessing qualities befitting a man)

Derivation:

effeminateness (the trait of being effeminate (derogatory of a man))

 Context examples 

“Mugridge, sir,” he fawned, his effeminate features running into a greasy smile.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A more civilized or more effeminate generation, however, had refused to be pent up in such a cellar, and the hall with its neighboring chambers had been added for their accommodation.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Martin drank on silently, biting out his orders and invitations and awing the barkeeper, an effeminate country youngster with watery blue eyes and hair parted in the middle.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The man who had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his mother’s milk.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)