gender
UK /ˈd͡ʒɛndə/ · US /ˈd͡ʒɛndɚ/ noun, verb, adjective
Forms genders gendering gendered g.
- noun (obsolete) Class; kind.
- noun Sex (a category, either male or female, into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species).
- noun Identification as a man, a woman, or something else, and association with a (social) role or set of behavioral and cultural traits, clothing, etc; a category to which a person belongs on this basis. (Compare gender role, gender identity.)
- noun (grammar) A division of nouns and pronouns (and sometimes of other parts of speech) into masculine or feminine, and sometimes other categories like neuter or common, and animate or inanimate.
- noun (grammar) Synonym of voice (“particular way of inflecting or conjugating verbs”).
- noun (hardware) The quality which distinguishes connectors, which may be male (fitting into another connector) and female (having another connector fit into it), or genderless or androgynous (capable of fitting together with another connector of the same type).
- verb (sociology) To assign a gender to (a person); to perceive as having a gender; to address using terms (pronouns, nouns, adjectives...) that express a certain gender.
- verb (sociology) To perceive (a thing) as having characteristics associated with a certain gender, or as having been authored by someone of a certain gender.
- adjective (transgender slang) Evoking positive feelings regarding gender, like gender euphoria or gender envy. “This outfit I'm wearing feels gender as hell. It's incredible that I get to look this hot.”
- verb (archaic) To engender.
- verb (archaic or obsolete) To breed.
- noun An Indonesian musical instrument resembling a xylophone, used in gamelan music.
Synonyms
genre voice biological sex gendersex grammatical gender sex sexuality
Etymology
From Middle English gendre, borrowed from Old French gendre, borrowed from Latin genere (“type, kind”). Doublet of genre and genus. The verb developed after the noun. Displaced native Old English hād (“sex, gender”).
Inherited from Middle English gendren, from Middle French gendrer, from Latin generāre.
Borrowed from Indonesian gender.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Kind; sort. [Obs.] "One gender of herbs." Shak.
- noun Sex, male or female. [Obs. or Colloq.]
- verb To beget; to engender.
- verb To copulate; to breed. [R.] Shak.
Etymology [OF. genre, gendre (with excrescent d.), F.genre, fr. L. genus, generis, birth, descent, race, kind, gender, fr. the root of genere, gignere, to beget, in pass., to be born, akin to E. kin. See Kin, and cf. Generate, Genre, Gentle, Genus.]
Etymology [OF. gendrer, fr. L. generare. See Gender, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gender”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details