Used by Wiclif, Shakspeare, &c., in alluding to women in general: but now contemptuously.
1773. Just putting on my hat, to attend the females to church.—Wilkes, ‘Corresp.,’ iv. 141. (N.E.D.)
1839. In the House of Delegates in Maryland, in a debate on the passage of a bill “to protect the reputation of unmarried females,” the title was amended by striking out the word females, and inserting women, as the word “female” was an Americanism in that application.—Baltimore Patriot, March (Bartlett).
1841. There is hardly a female,—log cabin girl if you will,—in my neighbourhood, that has not a silk gown.—Mr. Hastings of Ohio in the House of Representatives, July 29: Congressional Globe, p. 244, Appendix.
1842. The destitute, heart-broken female, who has been reduced to distressing indigence.—Mr. Hastings of Ohio, in the House of Representatives, July 9: Cong. Globe, p. 695, App.
1911. There is, and has long been, an association in Philadelphia, going under the grotesque name of the “Female Protestant Episcopal Prayer Book Society of Pennsylvania.”
