A man who is weak, exhausted, or lacking in vigor; an effeminate or decadent man.
From effete (exhausted, weakened) + man. This compound follows English's productive pattern of adding man to adjectives to create agent nouns, though this particular word is rarely used in modern English.
In Victorian times, people used scientific-sounding compounds like this to describe social decline and perceived weakness—'effetman' was part of worries about civilization degenerating!
This term uses 'man' as the default human marker, reflecting historical male-as-norm language patterns in specialized or archaic terminology.
Use 'effete person' or avoid the gendered term entirely if reference is necessary in modern contexts.
["effete person","effete individual"]
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