Female, a.
1. Belonging to the sex which conceives and gives birth to young, or (in a wider sense) which produces ova; not male. As patient as the female dove When that her golden couplets are disclosed. Shak.
2. Belonging to an individual of the female sex; characteristic of woman; feminine; as, female tenderness. "Female usurpation.'b8 Milton. To the generous decision of a female mind, we owe the discovery of America. Belknap.
3. (Bot.)
Having pistils and no stamens; pistillate; or, in cryptogamous plants, capable of receiving fertilization.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Female, n.
1. An individual of the sex which conceives and brings forth young, or (in a wider sense) which has an ovary and produces ova. The male and female of each living thing. Drayton.
2. (Bot.)
A plant which produces only that kind of reproductive organs which are capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for female; he lists it under feminine.
Where he writes about it:
We apply female to the sex, feminine to the qualities, especially the finer physical or mental qualities that distinguish the female sex in the human family, or to the objects appropriate for or especially employed by them. — from feminine
A female voice is the voice of a woman; a feminine voice may belong to a man. — from feminine