effete [E17th] Today effete is usually used of a young man who is affected and rather effeminate, but the word originally referred to animals and meant ‘no longer fertile, worn out by bearing young’. It comes from Latin effetus, from ex-, meaning ‘out’, and fetus ‘breeding, childbirth, offspring’—the same word as English foetus [LME] (US fetus). The meaning developed into ‘having exhausted strength or vigour’ and in the late 18th century on to ‘feeble, over-refined’.