feminist

1 of 2

noun

fem·​i·​nist ˈfe-mə-nist 

plural feminists

: a person who supports or engages in feminism

Similarly, Saint Thomas's resident nun, Sister Maureen (Ann Dowd), is no girlish cutie: She's an ardent, in-your-face feminist.

—Terrence Rafferty

He [Stendhal] was a feminist and … he held that to deprive women of education 'deprives society of half its potential for intellectual achievement'.

—V. S. Pritchett

feminist

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adjective

: of, relating to, supporting, or compatible with feminism

feminist theory

the feminist movement

The act of speaking is a way women come to power, telling our stories, sharing history, engaging in feminist discussion.

—bell hooks

[Patricia] Ireland, past president of the National Organization for Women, is perhaps the best-known former Pan Am flight attendant of the '60s; seven years working for the airline helped inspire her feminist activism, which included campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment.

—Sarah Rose

Examples of feminist in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Beauvoir’s letters show a softer, surprisingly endearing side of the pioneering feminist, and Acocella mines them for the delightful and the dirty. —Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2025

Most women fall somewhere in between those two tropes, and for years feminists like Strauss have been working to do away with that false binary. —Nicole Fallert, USA Today, 10 Oct. 2025

Adjective

The target audience found it eventually, though, and Jennifer's Body has since been embraced as a deliciously entertaining slice of feminist horror. —Gwen Ihnat, Entertainment Weekly, 18 Oct. 2025

As feminist scholars have pointed out, strong reproductive rights are central to functioning democracies. —Seda Saluk, The Conversation, 16 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

Noun

1887, in the meaning defined above

Adjective

1852, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing feminist

• anti-feminist
• pre-feminist
• trans exclusionary radical feminist