In the 14th century, female appeared in English with such spellings as femel, femelle, and female. The word comes from the Latin femella, meaning young woman, girl, which in turn is based on femina, meaning woman. At the most fundamental level, “male” and “female” refer to two different reproductive roles defined by the type of sex cell, or gamete, an organism produces. Males produce small gametes (sperm), and females produce large gametes (eggs). An organism's sex is female if it produces the ovum, the type of gamete that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. Anatomically the general female characteristic of human sexual dimorphism is the human female reproductive system, which includes the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, and vulva. We use female and male to refer to the sex of humans and animals: … The kitten was actually a female, not a male. The study participants included 350 males and 250 females. This meaning is mostly used in formal or scientific writing when referring to groups of people. Female animals are those that produce ova, which are fertilized by the spermatozoa of males. The main difference between females and males is that females bear the offspring — and that goes for dogs, chickens, catfish, and anything in between. Female and woman are two terms that are often used interchangeably, but they actually have different meanings. A female is a biological sex category that refers to the sex of an organism, while a woman is a gender identity that refers to an adult human female. FEMALE definition: 1. belonging or relating to women or girls: 2. belonging or relating to the sex that can give…. Learn more. When looking at seed plants, the plants that only produce seed are called female, those that only produce pollen are called male. The majority of seed plants produce both, and are called hermaphrodite. Characteristics of organisms with a female sex vary between different species, having different female reproductive systems, with some species showing characteristics secondary to the reproductive system, as with mammary glands in mammals.