FEMALE  , the correlative of " male," the

sex which performs the function of conceiving and bearing as opposed to the begetting of young . The word in Middle English is femelle, adopted from the French from the Lat. femella, which is a diminutive, and in classical Latin used strictly as such, of femina, a woman . The present termination in English is due to a connexion in ideas with " male," In various mechanical devices, where two corresponding parts work within the other, the receiving part is often known as the " female," as for example in the " male " and " female screw." The O . Fr. feme, modern femme, occurs in legal phraseology in feme covert, a married woman, i.e. one protected or covered by a husband, and in feme sole, one not so protected, a widow or spinster (see WOMEN and HUSBAND AND WIFE) .