Id. Paradise Lost, x. 278.
But this young feature Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 40.
Feminine. The distinction between ‘feminine’ and ‘effeminate,’ that the first is ‘womanly,’ the second ‘womanish,’ the first what becomes a woman, and under certain limitations may without reproach be affirmed of a man, while the second under all circumstances dishonours a man, as ‘mannish’ would dishonour a woman, is of comparatively modern growth. Neither could ‘feminine’ now be used as an antithesis of ‘male,’ as by Milton (Paradise Lost, i. 423) it is.
Till at the last God of veray right
Displeased was with his condiciouns,
By cause he [Sardanapalus] was in every mannes sight
So femynyne in his affectiouns.
Lydgate, Poem against Idleness.
But Ninias being esteemed no man of war at all, but altogether feminine, and subject to ease and delicacy, there is no probability in that opinion.—Sir W. Raleigh, History of the World, b. ii. c 1, § 1.
Commodus, the wanton and feminine son of wise Antoninus, gave a check to the great name of his father.—Bishop Taylor, Apples of Sodom.