WOMEN
What does "WOMEN" mean?
The plural of woman; adult human females.
Meanings
- Adult human females, considered collectively or as a group. The women in the lab had published more papers that year than the entire department combined.
Did you know?
- WOMEN is one of English's quiet traps: it keeps the 'o' spelling of WOMAN but the vowel is read as a short 'i', so the singular and plural sound nothing alike in their first syllable.
Word origin
From Old English 'wimman', plural of 'wif' (woman, wife) + 'mann' (person); the spelling stays 'women' but the first vowel shifted to a short 'i' sound over centuries.
Remember it
WO-MEN: it literally contains 'men', but the 'o' before it flips the meaning entirely.
A little poem
Spelled like the men, sounded apart-
a single vowel rewrites the part,
and half the world begins the chart.
tercet
Wordplay
- Why is WOMEN a tricky word for spellers? Because it hides 'men' but refuses to sound like them.
What it teaches
Spelling can outlast sound: a word may keep an old shape long after its voice has moved on.
Quick facts
What does WOMEN mean?
The plural of woman; adult human females.
Is WOMEN a valid word?
Yes — WOMEN is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is WOMEN?
WOMEN has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does WOMEN come from?
From Old English 'wimman', plural of 'wif' (woman, wife) + 'mann' (person); the spelling stays 'women' but the first vowel shifted to a short 'i' sound over centuries.
What can WOMEN teach us?
Spelling can outlast sound: a word may keep an old shape long after its voice has moved on.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.