gen|der

gen|der «JEHN uhr», noun, verb.

–n.

1. the grouping of nouns into certain classes, such as masculine, feminine, and neuter. In English, except in pronouns (him—her—it) and a few nouns, now out of fashion, with endings such as -ess (actress), gender is now indicated only by the meaning of the word: »

man—woman, nephew—niece, rooster—hen.

2. one of such classes. Abbr: gen.

3. sex: »

the female gender.

4. the social character of being male or female: »

A senior…encouraged me to consider sociology, too, since I had become active in gender interests and relations on campus (Bryn Mawr Now).

5. Archaic. kind; sort; class.

–v.t.

Archaic. to produce (offspring); procreate.

–v.i.

Archaic. to be produced.

╂[< Old French gendre, learned borrowing from Latin genus, generis kind, sort; see etym. under genus (Cf. ↑genus). See etym. of doublet genre. (Cf. ↑genre)]

Usage gender. Many languages have special endings for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns and for adjectives modifying them, but English abandoned this system several hundred years ago, except for a few forms such as those ending in -ess, -us, -a, -or, -trix, -e, -eur, -euse (actress, mistress, alumnus, alumna, actor, aviatrix, blonde, masseur, masseuse), and many of these are no longer acceptable.