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I’m looking for a word that is feminine which means obedient, submissive and or compliant. I think "unterwürfig" and "gefügig" mean submissive but I’m not sure how to make them feminine words or, if there even is a feminine form for those words. Would "Gefügige" be close?

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    There are several German words that might be translated as submissive. All German adjectives can be declined according to gender (and also case), so they all have feminine forms. But I agree with infinitezero; the question isn't clear as it stands.
    – RDBury
    Oct 22, 2022 at 16:50
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    Adjectives don't have gender, only nouns. Can you give an example sentence of what you want to say? Oct 22, 2022 at 17:04

2 Answers 2

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If I understand correctly, you're looking for a noun, not an adjective, right? Because in German, adjectives get there "gender" through the object they belong to - it's a addon. It's as in English: the submissive man and the submissive woman. die gefügige frau, der gefügige mann.

If you capitalize a word and then put an e at the end, it usually becomes something "feminine", though of course the article still has to be thought of: "die Gefügige". So you can say "here comes 'die Gefügige'/the submissive one".

In my eyes, "Gefügige" doesn't fit very well, but it depends on what you want to express with it and in which context it should be. In case of a username (standing alone for it self) don't use "Gefügige", just use the plaine adjective capitalized (=Gefügig) or as Noun (=Gefügigkeit), but the last one sounds a bit weird.

If something was made that way first, then gefügig fits. However, if submissiveness is their nature/personality, then "unterwürfig" fits better. As an example, a dog is submissive, it just is. But a fighting dog, much of which has first been trained away (e.g. bite inhibition) and others trained on (e.g. extreme aggression), HAS BEEN made submissive, to fight in dog fights. I think docile would be the better english word for natural dog example. (I'm not a native speaker)

Do you understand what I mean? In a natural fight, for the role in a dog pack, it would be only submissiveness that the dog could show, if he loses, and of course if there's a natural ranking fight. One of the two rivals has the upper hand and then he signals submissiveness. The submissive would

"Devot" would be a german word for more sexual or partnership context, and has a little bit more style (is more classy) in it's sound - means the same as 'unterwürfig'. It's from the latin word devotus. -> "die Devote" - male: "der Devote". Mustn't be used in sexual context, "devot" can surely be used in business context, too. Devot used in business cases it's meaning is trending to opportune, so here it's a little bit negative connoted.

I don't know if I used all English the words correctly, but I hope this could help.

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A woman with submissive attitude can be called

Dienerin (c).

The underlying verb is dienen (2 a).

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