Definition of "effœminacie"

But as allow not altogether that ſeuere education of the old Spartan[(e)s] in their Children, hazzarding many times the healths of young and tender bodies, by ſome tedious ague; yea, alſo their liues, by the miſchance of a leape or ſtumbling of your horſe: ſo as much doe I deteſt that effœminacie of the moſt that burne out day and night in their beds and by the fire ſide, in trifles, gaming, or courting their yellow Miſtreſſes all the Winter in a Citie; appearing but as Cuckoes in the Spring, one time in the yeare to the Countrey and their tenants, leauing the care of keeping good houſes at Chriſtmas, to the honeſt Yeomen of the Countrey.

1622, Henry Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman Fashioning Him Absolute in the Most Necessary & Commendable Qualities Concerning Minde or Bodie That May Be Required in a Noble Gentleman, […] [John Legat] for Francis Constable, page 184 (no ligatures at EEBO; quoted in 1887)

And thou, ô Crato, needs aſide muſt caſt / Thoſe Riches and Effœminacies thou haſt; / Nor muſt thou bring thoſe Epitaphs along, / Nor pride of Anceſtrie; for thoſe may wrong / Our leaking Veſſell. […] By Iove, he hath gold too in ample meaſure; / Wrath, impudence, effœminacie, pleaſure, / Soft delicacies, in his life time deare, / Which, though he would conceale, now plaine appeare. […] Now where he with effœminacie brands / My looſer life; none here but vnderſtands / How he in Capua liv’d; where this chaſt man, / So temperat and abſtemious, nothing than / But whor’d and ſurfetted, wantonning and playing, / The very ſoule of Diſcipline betraying.

1635, Tho[mas] Heywood, The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells. Their Names, Orders and Offices; The Fall of Lucifer with His Angells, London: […] Adam Islip, pages 237, 238 and 395

They no ſooner faſten / With greedineſſe vpon me, but they haſten / To ope their gates wide, then with me by ſtealth / Enter (for alwaies they attend on wealth) / Hawtineſſe, Boaſting, with the mindes destraction, / Effœminacie, and to make vp the faction, / Oppreſſion and Deceit, with th’ intereſt / Of thouſand more; with which the heart poſſeſt, / Is ſuddenly ſubjected and brought under, / To admire toyes which are not worth the wonder, / And covet that which they ought moſt to fly.

1637, Thomas Heywood, The Royall King, and the Loyall Subject. As It Hath Beene Acted with Great Applause by the Queenes Majesties Servants., London: […] Nich. and John Okes for James Becket; republished as The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood Now First Collected with Illustrative Notes and a Memoir of the Author in Six Volumes, volume the sixth, London: John Pearson, 1874, page 175

If a man Dreams his hair is long, like a Womans, that ſignifies cowardize and effœminacie, and that he that Dreams will be deceiv’d by a Woman.

1669, Marck de Vulson; Sieur de la Colombiere, translated by J. G, The Court of Curiositie. Wherein, by the Algebra and Lot, the Most Intricate Questions Are Resolved, and Nocturnal Dreams and Visions Explained, According to the Doctrine of the Antients. To Which Is Also Added, a Treatise of Physiognomy., London: […] J. C. for William Crooke, page 45 (no ligatures at EEBO)