gender Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives; in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness
    grammatical gender.
  2. noun the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles
    sexuality; sex.
    • she didn't want to know the sex of the foetus

WordNet

Gen"der noun
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.
Definitions
  1. Kind; sort. Obs. "One gender of herbs." Shak.
  2. Sex, male or female. Obs. or Colloq.
  3. (Gram.) A classification of nouns, primarily according to sex; and secondarily according to some fancied or imputed quality associated with sex.
    Gender is a grammatical distinction and applies to words only. Sex is natural distinction and applies to living objects. R. Morris.
    ✍ Adjectives and pronouns are said to vary in gender when the form is varied according to the gender of the words to which they refer.
Gen"der transitive verb
Etymology
OF. gendrer, fr. L. generare. See Gender, n.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Gendered ; present participle & verbal noun Gendering
Definitions
  1. To beget; to engender.
Gen"der intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To copulate; to breed. R. Shak.

Webster 1913