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ings forth young, or (in a wider sense) which has an ovary and produces ova. The male and female of each living thing. Drayton.

a common species of fern with large decompound fronds (Asplenium Filixfæmina), growing in many countries; lady fern.

double rhymes, or rhymes (called in French feminine rhymes because they end in e weak, or feminine) in which two syllables, an accented and an unaccented one, correspond at the end of each line.

A female superior or governess of a nunnery, or convent of nuns, having the same authority over the nuns which the abbots have over the monks. See Abbey.

Violation; rape; as, abuse of a female child. [Obs.] Or is it some abuse, and no such thing Shak. Abuse of distress (Law), a wrongful using of an animal or chattel distrained, by the distrainer.

A female actor or doer. [Obs.] Cockeram.

A female helper or assistant. [R.]

ers the estate of an intestate, or to whom letters of administration have been granted; a female administrator.

A female admonitor.

A female adventurer; a woman who tries to gain position by equivocal means.

Without female organs; male.

A female albino. Holmes.

part sung by the highest male, or counter-tenor, voices; now the part sung by the lowest female, or contralto, voices, between in tenor and soprano. In instrumental music it now signifies the tenor.

A female pupil; especially, a graduate of a school or college.

, a small Indian song bird (Estrelda amandava), commonly caged and kept for fighting. The female is olive brown; the male, in summer, mostly crimson; -- called also red waxbill. [Written also amaduvad and avadavat.]

One of a fabulous race of female warriors in Scythia; hence, a female warrior.

A female ambassador; also, the wife of an ambassador. Prescott.

A female ancestor.

A female anchoret. And there, a saintly anchoress, she dwelt. Wordsworth.

g both sexes in one, or having the characteristics of both; being in nature both male and female; hermaphroditic. Owen. The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous. Coleridge.