female

1. (grammar, less common than 'feminine') Feminine; of the feminine grammatical gender.Examples: "The teacher's voice inflects the pulse of nêhiyawêwin as he teaches us. He says a prayer in the first class. Nouns, we learn, have a gender. In French, nouns are male or female, but in Cree, nouns are living or non-living, animate or inanimate."; "If you are describing a female noun, you must make the adjective feminine by adding an 'e'. If you describe a male noun, you add an 'er'. For neutral nouns you add an 'es'."feminineform-ofnot-comparableusually

2. (of bacteria) Lacking the F factor, and able to receive DNA from another bacterium which does have this factor (a male).Examples: "In this process, one bacterium designated the male bacterium transfers its DNA into the female bacterium. Bacteria are determined to be male or female by a small piece of DNA, called F-plasmid, or sex factor. Bacteria with this small piece of DNA are labeled as males, and bacteria that do not have this factor are considered females."not-comparableusually

3. (figuratively) Having an internal socket, as in a connector or pipe fitting.Examples: "A ground-joint union is made in three separate pieces and is used for joining two pipes. It consists of two machined pieces with female pipe threads, which are screwed on the pipes to be united, and a threaded collar which holds the two pieces of the union together."figurativelynot-comparableusually