Etymology

The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wfmann[1] to wmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman.[2] In Old English, wfmann meant "female human", whereas wr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone", however subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 1200s had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wr.[3] The medial labial consonants f and m in wfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female," underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.[4] A very common Indo-European root for woman, *gwen-, is the source of modern English "queen" (Old English cwn had primarily meant woman, highborn or not; this is still the case in Danish, with the modern spelling kvinde, as well as in Swedish kvinna). The word gynaecology is also derived from the Ancient Greek cognate gyn, woman. Other English words traceable to the same Indo-European root include banshee "fairy woman" (from Irish bean "woman" and s "fairy") and zenana (from Persian zan).[5] The Latin fmina, whence female, is likely from the root in fellre (to suck), in reference to breastfeeding.[6]