mansplanation

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noun

A condescending explanation given by a male explainer to a female listener, especially to explain something the listener already knows, presuming that she has an inferior understanding of it because she is a woman.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

nounmansplanation (plural mansplanations)

plural mansplanations

  1. informalA condescending explanation given by a male explainer to a female listener, especially to explain something the listener already knows, presuming that she has an inferior understanding of it because she is a woman.

    Like I said, I can see how a person can take the song as a mansplanation of an issue primarily pertaining to women, but was that Lupe’s intention?

    2012, Ameer Hasan Loggins, "Bitch Bad: Misogyny, Misappropriated Anger & 'Me-ism'", Onyx Express (University of California, Berkeley), Volume 18, Issue 1, Spring 2012, page 9
    2 more examples

    English physician Samuel Farr was pretty certain women couldn't get pregnant without an orgasm. The Guardian quotes the mansplanation from his 1814 Elements of Medical Jurisprudence: "For without an excitation of lust, or the enjoyment of pleasure in the venereal act, no conception can probably take place. So that if an absolute rape were to be perpetrated, it is not likely she would become pregnant."

    2012 August, Erika Eichelberger, “Men Defining Rape: A History”, in Mother Jones

    Vesta's left me alone with him so he can give me some sort of Big Daddy lecture. Because the thing I need right now is a mansplanation of the error of my thinking.

    2014 October 28, Alex Marwood, The Killer Next Door, Penguin, →ISBN, unnumbered page

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

mansplanation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mansplanation

MLA

“mansplanation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mansplanation. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mansplanation,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mansplanation.

Source: mansplanation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.