A woman is an adult female human. [a][2][3] Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. [4] Typically, women inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent. Sex differentiation of the female fetus is governed by the lack of a present functioning SRY gene on either one of the respective sex chromosomes. [5] Female anatomy is distinguished from male anatomy by ...
From Middle English womman, from earlier wimman, wifman, from Old English wīfmann (“woman”, literally “female person”), a compound of wīf (“woman, female”, whence English wife) + mann (“person, human being”, whence English man).