Meanings
- uncountableLesbianism.
Things changed when Théophile Gautier made tribadism a fashionable feature of French decadence, and Baudelaire reminded the world that it all started on Lesbos.
2004 February 2, Emily Wilson, “Lady of Lesbos”, in The Guardian, →ISSN - specificallyuncountableA sexual act in which two women rub their vulvas together.
The Lesbian is the analogue among women of Persian love among men, and this perversion takes place in two ways, either by friction of the two female bodies, known as tribadism, or by the tongue, designated as cunnilinguism.
1908, Medical Council: Volume 13, page 121 more example
In Bali[…] homosexuality is almost as common among women as among men, though it is more secretly exercised; the methods of gratification adopted are either digital or lingual, or else by bringing the parts together (tribadism).
1927, Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 3rd edition, volume 2Synonyms: trib, tribbing, scissoring
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA sexual act in which two women rub their vulvas together.
Origin
Translations
Bulgarian лесбийство
- лесбийство (lesbijstvo)sexual practice
Catalan tribadisme
- tribadismesexual practice
Chinese Cantonese 磨豆腐
- 磨豆腐 (mo⁴ dau⁶ fu⁶)sexual practice
Chinese Mandarin 磨豆腐
- 磨豆腐 (mòdòufu)sexual practice
Dutch tribadisme
- tribadismesexual practice
Esperanto tribadismo
- tribadismosexual practice
Finnish tribadismi
- tribadismisexual practice
French tribadisme
- tribadismesexual practice
German Tribadie
- Tribadiesexual practice
Greek πλακομούνι
- πλακομούνι (plakomoúni)sexual practice
Italian tribadismo
- tribadismosexual practice
Japanese 貝合わせ
- 貝合わせ (kaiawase)sexual practice
Korean 밴대질, 가위치기
- 밴대질 (baendaejil)sexual practice
- 가위치기 (gawichigi)sexual practice
Polish trybadyzm
- trybadyzmsexual practice
Portuguese tribadismo
- tribadismosexual practice
Spanish tribadismo
- tribadismosexual practice
Cite this entry
tribadism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tribadism
“tribadism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tribadism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tribadism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tribadism.
Source: tribadism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.