gender

Pluralgenders

Formsgenders, gendering, gendered

1. 1
   identitynouncountable or uncountable

   A person's identification as a man, a woman, or something else, together with the social role and cultural traits associated with that identity.

   The workshop explored how gender shapes the clothes that people choose to wear.

   He spoke openly about how his gender differs from what others first expected.

   UsageCommon compounds: gender role, gender identity; people divide along gender lines.

   Note

   Here the word moves from bodies to social life. Ching Kwan Lee's Gender and the South China Miracle (1998) describes the move away from treating gender as "another word for sex" and toward seeing it as a social process. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Ching Kwan Lee wrote Gender and the South China Miracle, first published in 1998. ucpress.edu
   • Lee describes a shift from treating gender as synonymous with sex to understanding it as a social process; the quoted wording is accurate. en.wiktionary.org
2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Either of the categories, male or female, into which sexually reproducing organisms are divided according to their reproductive roles.

   Most people can't tell a goldfish's gender at a glance, because males and females look almost the same.

   The clinic noted the patient's gender alongside other basic medical details.

   UsageMany careful writers keep sex for the biological category; where precision matters, sex is the safer word.

   Similarsex

   Note

   The older, simpler use, in which gender just means sex. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing in 1723, consoles herself for "being of that gender". It lives on in medical and survey phrasing such as age, gender, and other factors. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • The use of gender to mean sex predates its modern identity and social-role sense. en.wiktionary.org
   • Montagu's letter containing the quotation is dated 1723. archive.org
   • Montagu uses the exact phrase 'being of that gender' while describing her consolation for being female. archive.org
3. 3
   grammar classnouncountable or uncountable

   A grouping of nouns and pronouns (and sometimes other words) into classes such as masculine, feminine, neuter, common, or animate and inanimate.

   Spanish adjectives change their endings to match the gender of the noun they describe.

   Many learners struggle to remember the gender of each German noun.

   Note

   Grammar's categories are classes of words, and they need not track sex at all. Greville G. Corbett's Gender (1991) describes Algonquian languages, where a noun's form predicts whether it belongs to the animate or the inanimate gender. In English the category survives mainly in pronouns such as he, she, and it. A noun can be grammatically masculine without naming anything male. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

   • Grammatical genders are word classes and need not correspond to sex. amor.cms.hu-berlin.de
   • Greville G. Corbett wrote Gender, first published in 1991. pdfcoffee.com
   • Corbett describes predicting Algonquian animate or inanimate gender from a noun's form, specifically its full morphology. en.wiktionary.org
   • English retains gender distinctions mainly in pronouns. en.wikipedia.org
   • A grammatically masculine noun need not denote anything male. surrey.ac.uk
4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To assign a gender to someone or something, or to treat it as belonging to or suited to one gender.

   Critics noted how the magazine genders certain hobbies as masculine.

   Readers sometimes gender a novel based on its cover alone.

   UsageMost familiar as the adjective gendered: gendered language, a gendered society.

   Note

   The object can be a person, but also a text, an object or a whole institution. The participle gendered carries it into description: Cheryl Glenn's Rhetoric Retold (1997) calls Renaissance society "gendered to the advantage of the adult male". In literary study, to gender the text is to assign it a male or female voice or author. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • Cheryl Glenn wrote Rhetoric Retold, first published in 1997. siupress.com
   • Glenn describes Renaissance society using the exact quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org

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