The Meaning of josei [女性] In Japanese

女性
じょせい
Romaji: josei N4

What does 女性 mean?

Translation and Meaning

woman, female

Definition

What does 女性 mean? It means ‘woman’ or ‘female’ in Japanese and refers to the female sex or adult women as a social and demographic category, used as a neutral and often formal term to talk about gender or groups of women.

Type

noun; also used as a suffix (名詞、接尾辞)

Stroke Order

Meanings

  • Used as a demographic label to indicate the female segment of a population or audience.
  • Acts as a polite or formal referent for an adult woman, contrastive with casual words for ‘woman’.
  • Functions attributively in compounds to mark female-specific products, spaces, or roles.
  • Can denote the concept of femininity or female characteristics in abstract usage.

Origin

The compound comes from Sino-Japanese vocabulary derived from Chinese characters and has been part of Japanese written registers for centuries; its use broadened in modern society (Meiji period onward) as census, legal, and public-health classifications and discourse adopted standardized gender terms.

Composition

  • 女 (onna) — ‘woman, female’; represents the idea of a female person.
  • 性 (sei) — ‘nature, sex, gender’; denotes the quality or category of sex/gender.
  • Combined, the two characters form a compound meaning ‘female sex’ or ‘womanhood’, producing the neutral/formal noun for women.

Usage

Common in formal speech, writing, media, signage and official contexts to refer to women or the female category; appears in demographic reports, medical and legal language, and as a modifier in phrases indicating ‘for women’ or ‘female-only’; it is less common in intimate casual talk where other native terms often appear.
💡 Tips
Mnemonic: break it into 女 (female) + 性 (sex/gender) and remember josei = ‘female/gender’, so the word literally points to ‘female-ness’.

Variations

  • 女 (onna) — woman (more casual, everyday)
  • 婦人 (fujin) — lady, women (formal, polite)
  • 少女 (shoujo) — young girl, female youth (age-specific)
  • 男性 (dansei) — man, male (antonym)
女性