effeminacy

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Dandyism’s persistent associations with criminality, effeminacy and homosexuality would achieve notoriety in Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trials.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 15, 2026

Warhol also embraced camp as a personal style, performing a theatrical effeminacy that equated to a strategic queerness designed to discomfit those among his contemporaries who held him to be "too swish."

From Salon • Feb. 19, 2022

Through his balletic gait and florid presentation, Mercury rubbed the nose of Live Aid’s global audience in a powerful brand of effeminacy, seducing them into adoring something they might otherwise view with contempt.

From New York Times • Nov. 9, 2018

With Abe and his effeminacy, Chabon is all patience.

From Slate • May 17, 2018

Coarseness is the inevitable excrescence of superabundant vitality, just as effeminacy is the danger limit of delicacy and refinement.

From Essays on Modern Novelists by Phelps, William Lyon