Fem or femme?
fem is a noun meaning “Synonym of femme”; femme is a noun meaning “A woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl”. They sound the same (/fɛm/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) femme is about 2.0 times as common as fem.
What is the difference between fem and femme?
| fem | femme | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective, prefix | noun, adjective, verb |
| Meaning | Synonym of femme colloquialFeminine, effeminate Of or pertaining to femininity or women | A woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl A lesbian or other queer woman whose appearance, identity etc. is seen as feminine as opposed to butch CanadaUSPertaining to a femme; feminine, female |
| Example | Versatile, but love to bottom … No divas or fems. Not homophobic at all, just my personal preference | Near-synonym: lipstick lesbian (sometimes differentiated) |
| Forms | fems fems. | femmes |
| Pronunciation | /fɛm/ | /fɛm/ |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | 1.5 times per million words |
Sources: fem and femme in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of fem and femme
fem
- 1
Synonym of femme
- 2
colloquialFeminine, effeminate
- 3
Initialism of field emission microscopy
- 4
Abbreviation of feminine
- 5
Abbreviation of feminine (word or form of the feminine grammatical gender)
- 6
Of or pertaining to femininity or women
- 7
colloquialderogatoryA feminine or effeminate person
Versatile, but love to bottom … No divas or fems. Not homophobic at all, just my personal preference
- 8
Synonym of femme
femme
- 1
A woman; a wife; (now chiefly Canada, US) a young woman or girl
- 2
CanadaUSPertaining to a femme; feminine, female
- 3
To feminize
“Aside from the major surgeries, and this Karen woman, all the roles that keep the programme going are filled by Dorley graduates.” She twirls a finger in the air. “We’re an…
- 4
A lesbian or other queer woman whose appearance, identity etc. is seen as feminine as opposed to butch
Near-synonym: lipstick lesbian (sometimes differentiated)
- 5
derogatoryEffeminate (of a man)
- 6
A person whose gender is feminine-leaning, such as a feminine non-binary person
The same is true of Goddess Spirituality spaces which are predicated on Radical Feminist rhetorics about Nature and the embodied experience – even those spaces which are open to…
- 7
Characteristic of a feminine lesbian or queer woman
Her style was more femme than butch
- 8
USderogatoryAn effeminate or gay man
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, fem or femme?
fem appears about once in every 1 million words; femme 1.5 times per million words.
fem about once in every 1 million wordsfemme 1.5 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search fem vs femme?
“fem vs femme” is searched about 1,300 times a month on Google and 40 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“femme vs fem”, “fem or femme”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.