For Women Attracted to Women
- Amy-john
- Androdyke (Short for "androgynous
dyke")
- Bagbaru (Zande African term referring to
either of two women in a lesbian marriage in which one woman
assumed the role of "husband" and the other that of
"wife")
- Bull (Short for
"bulldyke")
- Bull bitch ("Variant of
"bulldyke")
- Bulldagger (Variant of
"bulldyke," especially popular in the 1920s)
- B.D. (Short for Bulldagger)
- Bulldyke (A very masculine
dyke)
- Charlie
- Cofeminator
- Collar-and-tie
- Dagger (Short for
"bulldagger," but without the "bull" it
doesn't necessarily imply masculinity)
- Dandysette
- Daughter of Bilitis
- Derrick
- Diesel dyke (A very masculine
dyke)
- Dike
- Dutch girl
- Dyke
- Dykeosaurus (Often implies a very butch
gender presentation)
- Etelle (French for "and she";
invented by Eve Shalom)
- Fairy lady
- Fellow
- Fluff
- Gal officer
- Gaychick
- Gay lady
- Goose girl
- Goudou
- Gougnotte
- Grousse
- Grrrl
- Harpy
- Jasper
- King (Female counterpart to a
queen)
- Lady-lover
- Lemon
- Lemonade
- Les-be-friends
- Lesbian
- Lesbianka
- Lesbica
- Lesbo
- Lesbyterian
- Leslie
- Lezz
- Lezzie
- Lezzo
- Lipstick butch (A lesbian with a
feminine appearance and a masculine personality)
- Lipstick lesbian
- Lizzie
- Mandyke (A very masculine
dyke)
- Manflora
- Maricona
- Muffet
- Nadleehi asdzaan (Navajo Native American
word)
- Polone-omi (A term from
Polari, the language developed by gay men in
various parts of England during the era when gay sex was illegal,
in order to communicate with each other with less risk of being
caught. "Poloni" means "woman" and
"omi" means "man." Taken together in this
order, they mean "lesbian.")
- Pantonaluda
- Poppa
- Raleigh bike
- Ruffle
- Sappho
- Sapphist
- Sergeant
- Sistagirl
- Slacks
- Tinkerbell
- Tom
- Tommy
- Tootsie
- Tribade
- Tribadist
- Truck dyke
- Uraniad (English translation of
"Urningin" below)
- Urningin (Invented by Karl Heinrich
Ulrichs in the mid-19th century; means "a woman who loves
women because she has the soul of a man")
- Vot
- Vrille
- Warme Schwester
- Wasaga (Mombasa African word referring
to the "dominant . . . older and wealthier" partner in
a lesbian relationship, according to Gary Bowen's
Dictionary of Words for Masculine Women.)
- Wasagaji (Zanzibar African
word)
- Wicker
- Woman-identified woman (Used by
lesbian-feminists in the 1970s to de-emphasize the importance of
sex in defining lesbianism)
- Woman-loving woman
- Womyn-identified womyn
- Womyn-loving womyn
- Yaika bonsango (Nkundo African word
meaning "a woman who presses up against another
woman")
- Zami (African-American word for
"lesbian"; popularized by Audre Lorde in her
autobiography Zami: A New Spelling of My
Name)
See also: For people attracted to the
same sex
For people attracted to women
© 2000-2009 by Gayle Madwin. All rights reserved.