Talk:foemina

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Latin alternative spelling of femina, allegedly. My Latin is abysmal, but if this were the case, then wouldn’t its existence give rise to *defœminate, *effœminate, *fœminine, *fœmininity, *fœminism, *fœminist, *fœminize, &c. in English? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 01:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.... I don't find the spelling foemina in Lewis & Short or in Souter, but it does appear in Calepinus and Facciolati. It also turns up in at least six medieval and Renaissance Latin texts. All the examples of "foe-" words in Classical Latin begin with "foed-" or "foet-". What this means (I think) is that it's an affected medieval spelling that was not present in the Classical language. --EncycloPetey 04:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• 1590: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1758 ed.)

  The one imperfect, mortall, fœminine,

  Th’ other immortall, perfect, maſculine;

• 1614: Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrimage

  And here, beſides other ſtreames, ſlideth Thermodon, ſometime made famous by the bordering Amazones. Of which Manly fœminine people, ancient Authours diſagree

And even:

• 1773-74: William Bartram, "A Report to Dr. John Fothergill" (1943, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc.)

  A very fiew days after the fly appears the fœmale deposits her Eggs in clusters on the branches or leaf of the Tree ... Either the male or fœmale, are almost constantly, at the mouth of the nest

--Ptcamn 19:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

But those don't bear on the existence of this Latin word. I've been doing some "-oe-" investigations recently and there are some English spellings with "oe" that seem to have no basis in Latin, like oesophagus, which I was completely unable to find even in Medieval Latin from Britain. There seem to be some English words that have adopted "oe" as a Latinoid affectation without that spelling ever occurring in Latin itself. --EncycloPetey 21:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Cited from Latin work by Thomas Moore. --EncycloPetey 18:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

RfVpassed. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)