The 20 words researchers say most women know – but men might not

Virgin Radio

15 Feb 2022, 10:57

Are you au fait with these words? Or don't know your Tulle from your Taffeta? According to professor Marc Brysbaert, the sexes struggle with different words when it comes to this collection of vocabulary.

In a study of 220,000 people, women were familiar with words such as peplum, tulle, chignon, bandeau, freesia, chenille, kohl, verbena, sateen, chambray, pessary and voile.

Whereas men were more in tune with words including neodymium, yakuza, teraflop, strafe, parsec, bushido, howitzer, thermistor, azimuth, femtosecond and milliamp.

Reported by The Mirror, one male user wrote online: "I know all but one of the female list and all but three of the male list.

"If you know a bit about physics, hair and beauty, weapons, and dressmaking you’re got most of both lists covered."

Another man wrote: "Words men know but women don't and vice versa. As a man, I have to say... are those real words women know? I don't know a single one. I do know quite a few of the male words, but not all."

Professor Brysbaert, director of the Centre for Reading Research at Ghent University in Belgium, said: "At the Centre of Reading Research we are investigating what determines the ease with which words are recognised.

"As we made the list ourselves and have not used a commercially available dictionary list with copyright restrictions, it can be made available to everyone, and all researchers can access it."

Have a go at taking the word test here.