distaff
Of, relating to, or characteristic of womenOf, relating to, or characteristic of women.
» She took the distaff and the wool she had just unraveled in order to begin spinning.
Igider15 · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
2 senses(not comparable)Of, relating to, or characteristic of women.
же́нскийžénskij
characteristic of or peculiar to a woman
(not comparable)Of the maternal side of a family.
Examples
1 sentencesShe took the distaff and the wool she had just unraveled in order to begin spinning.
Translations
2 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
From Middle English distaf (“distaff”), from Old English distæf (“distaff”), from *dis- (“From Middle English distaf (“distaff”), from Old English distæf (“distaff”), from *dis- (“bunch of flax”) (cognate with Middle Low German dise (“bunch of flax on a distaff”)) + stæf (“staff”) (from Proto-Germanic *stabaz (“staff, stick”), from Proto-Indo-European *stebʰ-). Senses 3 and 5 (“anything traditionally done by or considered of importance to women only”; “a woman, or women considered as a group”) refer to the fact that spinning was traditionally done by women.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Synonyms
2 synonyms- characteristic of or peculiar to a woman:female
Antonyms
3 antonymsWord family
1 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.