different between womanish vs sissy

English

Etymology

From Middle English wommanyssh. Equivalent to woman +? -ish.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?w?m?n??/

Adjective

womanish (comparative more womanish, superlative most womanish)

1. (often derogatory) Characteristic of a woman; feminine; effeminate. [from 14th c.]
   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.20:

     Friends are a comfort in misfortune, but one should not make them unhappy by seeking their sympathy, as is done by women and womanish men.

   • 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance, Faber & Faber 2004 (Avignon Quintet), p. 753:

     Perhaps he did too, for he turned scarlet and turned his face away to the wall, with a womanish gesture of shyness.

2. Carried out by or pertaining to a woman. [from 14th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:

     And gan recomfort her in her rude wyse, / With womanish compassion of her plaint, / Wiping the teares from her suffused eyes [...].

Related terms

• womanly

Translations

See also

• girlish
• ladyish

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?si/
• Rhymes: -?si
• Homophone: cissy

Etymology 1

From sis +? -y.

Noun

sissy (plural sissies)

1. (derogatory, colloquial) An effeminate boy or man.
2. (derogatory, colloquial) A timid, unassertive or cowardly person.
   • 1963, Robert Smith, Pro Football: The History of the Game and the Great Players (page 144)

     This was all part of football and if any man was such a sissy he could not stand it, then he had better seek the sidelines.

3. (BDSM) A male crossdresser who adopts feminine behaviours.
   • 2018, Paul Zante, Sissy Dreams: Motel Sissy (page 4)

     I realised I still held my normal male clothes and dropped them to the floor under the desk, out of the way. […] Would it hurt? Yes, I knew it would from watching videos of sissies being spanked by their dominant mistresses.

4. (colloquial) Sister.
   • 2008, Rita T. Kohn, William Lynwood Montell, Always a People: Oral Histories of Contemporary Woodland Indians

     Her seven-year-old brother Justin sat on my lap beside her casket. I explained to him why we were staying with his sissy. He wouldn't leave; he stayed, too. He kissed her, touched her hand, told her he would miss her.

Synonyms

• (effeminate man or boy): cot-quean (obsolete), janegirl (“effeminate boy”) (rare); see also Thesaurus:effeminate man
• (timid or cowardly person): milquetoast, nancy, pussy, quiche-eater; see also Thesaurus:milksop
• (sister): sis

Antonyms

• non-sissy
• unsissy

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

sissy (comparative sissier, superlative sissiest)

1. (derogatory) Effeminate.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 26]:

     Frontiersmen were never afraid of poetry. It was Big Business with its fear of femininity, it was the eunuchoid clergy capitulating to vulgar masculinity that made religion and art sissy things.

   • 2000, Jeffery Deaver, Manhattan Is My Beat (revised edition), Bantam Books, ?ISBN, page 173:

     […] she’d decided the wrapping paper was too feminine. It had a viney pattern that wasn’t anything sissier than you’d see in the old Arabian Nights illustrations. But Richard might think they were flowers.

2. (derogatory) Cowardly.

Translations

Etymology 2

Likely onomatopoetic, perhaps related to French pipi (“urine”). Compare piss; wee-wee.

Noun

sissy (uncountable)

1. (childish, colloquial) Urination; urine.

Translations

Verb

sissy (third-person singular simple present sissies, present participle sissying, simple past and past participle sissied)

1. (childish, colloquial) To urinate.

Translations