feminist

1 of 2

noun

fem·​i·​nist ˈfe-mə-nist How to pronounce feminist (audio)
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

2 of 2

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
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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 Handmaid’s Tale meets The Arabian Nights in Julia Jackman’s feature debut, a feminist fantasy that leans hard into whimsy while making some salient points about the place of women in the real world. Damon Wise, Deadline, 21 Oct. 2025 Set in the 1970s at the meetings of a feminist consciousness-raising group — as well as in the present day, when a narrator (Susannah Flood) is telling the story of the group her mother founded — the show goes down like a bracing tonic, an antidote for the dark. Sara Holdren, Vulture, 21 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for feminist

Word History

First Known Use

Noun

1887, in the meaning defined above

Adjective

1852, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of feminist was in 1852

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Feminist.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminist. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

More from Merriam-Webster on feminist

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!