mannishness

mannishness

English

Etymology

mannish +‎ -ness

Noun

mannishness (uncountable)

1. The condition of being mannish; manliness or masculinity.
   • 1903, Mabel Atkinson, Review of Lily Braun, Die Frauenfrage: ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung und wirtschaftliche Seite in American Journal of Sociology, 1 March, 1903, p. 703,

     She thinks also that when once the first ardor of revolution, with its inevitable tendency to mannishness, has passed by, women who work need lose none of their proper grace and charm—a view which is certainly borne out by facts.

   • 1922, A. S. M. Hutchinson, This Freedom, Part Two, Chapter 2,

     I hate women in stiff collars and shirts and ties and mannishness like that […]

   • 1999, Debra Spark, “Chocolate Mice,” in New England Review, Volume 20, Issue 4, p. 123,

     There was a certain thickness to her movement and appearance, a rough mannishness, despite the large breasts which she tried to flatten beneath a harness-like bra, stolen from an older sister's dresser.

2. (Caribbean) Impertinence; precociousness.
   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, 2001, Part One, Chapter 5,

     Chinta came straight up to him and said, with the mannishness she put on when Mrs Tulsi was away, ‘Brother-in-law, I want you to know that until you came to this house there were no crab-catchers here.’[1]

References

1. cf. Richard Alsopp, Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, University of the West Indies Press, 2003, mannish.