fair sex

• the fairer sex

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

the fair sex

1. (idiomatic, dated, now sometimes offensive) Women collectively.
   • 1728, Daniel Defoe, chapter 8, in Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton:

     The younger Gentry, or Dons, to express their Gallantry, carry about them Egg-shells, fill'd with Orange or other sweet Water, which they cast at Ladies in their Coaches, or such other of the fair Sex as they happen to meet in the Streets.

   • 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter 23, in The Abbot. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC:

     "Permit me rather to perform my duty in attending them," said Roland, anxious to show he was possessed of the high tone of deference prescribed by the rules of chivalry towards the fair sex, and especially to dames and maidens of quality.

   • 1881, Bayard Taylor, The Lake Regions of Central Africa, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 147:

     Our entrance was attended with the usual ceremony, now familiar to the reader: the warmen danced, shot, and shouted, a rabble of adults, youths and boys crowded upon us, the fair sex lulliloo'd with vigor[.]

   • 1904 December, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Second Stain”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:

     “Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department,” said Holmes, with a smile, when the dwindling frou-frou of skirts had ended in the slam of the front door.

   • 1913–1921, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Blind Man”, in England My England and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, published 24 October 1922, →OCLC, page 89:

     And he had his friends among the fair sex—not lovers, friends.

• In contemporary usage, this term may be regarded by some as patronizing toward women, though it was not originally intended thus.

• weaker sex
• weaker vessel