Gender definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

View all »
Definitions (22)

American Heritage Dictionary (9)

noun Grammar A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.
noun Grammar One category of such a set.
noun Grammar The classification of a word or grammatical form in such a category.

6 more from this dictionary »

Century Dictionary (7)

Kind; sort; class; genus. The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him. Shak., Hamlet, iv. 7. Our bodies are our gardens; to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will … supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many, … why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. Shak., Othello, i. 3. Several sorts which they called genders or species, according as they referred them, either upwards to a more comprehensive sort of bodies, or downwards to a narrower species. Boyle, Origin of Forms.
Sex, male or female. [Colloq. and humorous.] “Her laying herself out to catch the admiration of vulgar minds, in a way which made me blush for my—for my—” “Gender,” suggested Mr. Squeers. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, xlii.
In grammar, a formal distinction in words, apparently founded on and in part expressing differences of sexual character, as male and female, or as male, female, or of neither sex (neuter). In the languages of the Indo-European family the distinction originally is threefold, as masculine, feminine, and neuter (the first including principally male beings, the second female, and the third those of no sex), and appears in nouns, adjectives, and pronouns (except the personal pronouns), although among masculines and feminines are included (on grounds not yet made clear) many words designating things of no sex. In the Semitic languages the genders are only two, masculine and feminine, and the distinction is made also in the second and third persons of verbs. In the majority of languages distinction of gender is altogether wanting. In some tongues differences not of sex are made the ground of formal distinctions also called by some by the name gender: thus, that of animate and inanimate objects in American languages; a manifold distinction (of obscure origin) in South African languages, and so on. Some languages, like the modern French, have lost the neuter gender, and have masculine and feminine only; some, like English, have no gender except in a few pronouns, as he, she, it; some, like modern Persian, have no gender whatever. Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Shak., M. W. of W., iv. 1.

4 more from this dictionary »

View all »
Examples (40)

But the southern continent could do with a Goddess of Women, if the dislike for her gender was as strong in the general population as it was with these Thinkers. — VoiceoftheGods
"Pressure to act in a certain way based on your gender is at the heart of a lot of pain for a lot of people," Chasnoff recently remarked as she began to promote her film. — SF360
All of a sudden her gender is a free pass to avoid responding to critical questions seeking to understand what will happen to our country if and when "Hockey Mom" has to deal with Putin, — Top Stories - Google News
She added that her gender was an issue when she was being considered for the city manager job in Aspen. — Aspen Times - Top Stories
But a woman chosen simply for her gender is an insult. — Natalia Antonova

More examples »

Add a related word »
Related

Used in the Same Context

sexuality · racial · cultural · identity · nationality · orientation · sex · caste · ethnicity · genetic · organizational · fundamental

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English gendre, from Old French, kind, gender, from Latin genus, gener-; see genə- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (3)

from Middle English gendyr, gendre, from Old French gendre, genre, French genre, kind, genus, style, = Provencal gendre, genre = Spanish género = Portuguese genero = Italian genere, kind, from Latin genus (ablative genere), race, stock, sort, kind: see genus, of which gender is a doublet.
from Middle English gendren, from Old French gendrer, genrer = Spanish generar (obsolete) = Portuguese gerar = Italian generare, from Latin generare, beget, from genus (gener-), kind, genus: see gender, n. Cf. generate, engender.
Jav. and Malayan gender.

gender

View all »
Definitions (22)

American Heritage Dictionary (9)

Century Dictionary (7)

GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

WordNet (2)

Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (40)

Tags

Stats

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context

Word Family

Etymologies (4)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Century Dictionary (3)

Pronunciations
Record your own »

Charts

Recently looked up

Recent Favorites

Recent Pronunciations

gender

View all » Definitions (22)

View all » Examples (40)

Tags

Stats

stop updating On Twitter

Photos from

Add a related word » Related

related words:

synonyms:

Etymologies (4)

Pronunciations Record your own »

Charts

Recently looked up

Recent Favorites

Recent Pronunciations

View all »
Definitions (22)

View all »
Examples (40)

stop updating
On Twitter

Add a related word »
Related

Pronunciations
Record your own »