A woman of Central European descent. File:Symbol venus.svg|thumb|105px|Symbol of the planet and Roman goddess Venus, also used to indicate the female sex. A woman (irregular plural: women) is a female human.

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A woman of Central European descent. File:Symbol venus.svg|thumb|105px|Symbol of the planet and Roman goddess Venus, also used to indicate the female sex. A woman (irregular plural: women) is a female human.

Etymology

The English term "Man" (from Proto-Germanic mannaz "man, person") and words derived therefrom can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age. This is the old usage of "Man" in English. It derives from Proto-Indo-European *mánu- 'man, human', cognate to Sanskrit manu, Old Church Slavonic mǫžĭ, 'man', 'husband'.

In Old English the words wer and wyf (also wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively, and "Man" was gender-neutral. In Middle English man displaced wer as term for "male human", whilst wifman (which eventually evolved into woman) was retained for "female human". ("Wif" also evolved into the word "wife".) "Man" carries this old sense of "Human" however, resulting in an asymmetry criticized as sexist. (See also womyn.)

A very common Indo-European root for woman, *g^wen-, is the source of English queen (Old English cwēn primarily meant woman, highborn or not; this is still the case in Danish, with the modern spelling kvinde), as well as gynaecology (from Greek gynē), banshee fairy woman (from Irish bean woman, sí fairy) and zenana (from Persian zan). The Latin fēmina, whence female, is likely from the root in fellāre (to suck), referring to breastfeeding.