English

Proper noun

Sissy

1. A diminutive of the female given name Cecilia.
   • 1854 Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Book I, Chapter II:

     ‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.’ ‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey. ‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’

English

Noun

sissy ‎(plural sissies)

1. (pejorative, colloquial) An effeminate boy or man.
2. (pejorative, colloquial) A timid, unassertive or cowardly person.
3. (BDSM) A male crossdresser who adopts feminine behaviours.
4. (colloquial) Sister.

Synonyms

• (timid or cowardly person): mama's boy, pansy, nancyboy, wussy, pussy (more offensive)
• (effeminate boy): janegirl

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

sissy ‎(comparative sissier, superlative sissiest)

1. (pejorative) Effeminate.
   • 2000, Jeffery Deaver, Manhattan Is My Beat (revised edition), Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-58176-7, page 173:

     […] she’d decided the wrapping paper was too feminine. It had a viney pattern that wasn’t anything sissier than you’d see in the old Arabian Nights illustrations. But Richard might think they were flowers.

2. (pejorative) Cowardly.

Etymology 2

Likely onomatopoetic, perhaps related to French pipi ‎(“urine”). Compare piss; wee-wee.

Noun

sissy ‎(uncountable)

1. (childish, colloquial) Urination; urine.
   • 1997, Clark Moustakas, Relationship Play Therapy, ISBN 9781461630449, page 160:

     She has to make. She has to make sissy.

Verb

sissy ‎(third-person singular simple present sissies, present participle sissying, simple past and past participle sissied)

1. (childish, colloquial) To urinate.
   • 1979, Rhea Kohan, Save Me a Seat, ISBN 9780060124281, page 25:

     Joan recognized her as the girl whose son had sissied on her pants. She was still dabbing at her pantleg with a damp paper towel.