Wommankynde

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Women considered as a whole group, the entire female sex of humankind
2. The collective body of women, referring to all females as a class of people
3. Used in older English to mean the female sex or women as one community

Etymology: "Wommankynde" is a Middle English word meaning "womankind," the collective body of women, and it is formed from two parts. "Woman" descends from Old English "wif-man," where "wif" meant "female" or "wife" and "man" meant "human being," so a woman was originally a female person. The second part, "-kynde," comes from "kind" in the sense of "race, species, or kind of people," the same root that gives "mankind" and "humankind." The compound follows a common pattern in English, where "kind" attached to a noun names everything belonging to that group. The "-ynde" spelling reflects the Middle English ending "-kynde" before it was standardized in the modern form "womankind." Early English writers used this type of compound freely, and "womankind" as a word for women as a group has been attested for centuries.