# gender

Pronunciation: US say "JEN-dur" /ˈd͡ʒɛndɚ/; UK say "JEN-duh" /ˈd͡ʒɛndə/

## Noun

1. A person's identification as a man, a woman, or something else, together with the social role and cultural traits associated with that identity.
   - Simple: Whether someone feels like a man, a woman, or something else, and the social role that goes with it.
   - _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._
2. Either of the categories, male or female, into which sexually reproducing organisms are divided according to their reproductive roles.
   - Simple: The grouping of living things into male or female, based on their role in reproduction.
   - _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._
3. A grouping of nouns and pronouns (and sometimes other words) into classes such as masculine, feminine, neuter, common, or animate and inanimate.
   - Simple: In some languages, a way of sorting nouns into groups such as masculine and feminine.
   - _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._

## Verb

4. To assign a gender to someone or something, or to treat it as belonging to or suited to one gender.
   - Simple: To treat a person or thing as male or female, or as meant for one gender.
   - _Critics noted how the magazine genders certain hobbies as masculine._
   - _Readers sometimes gender a novel based on its cover alone._

## Adjective

5. Producing positive feelings about one's gender, such as gender euphoria or a sense of gender envy. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Making someone feel good about their own gender.
   - _Her new name is so gender that she grins every time someone uses it._
   - _After his first short haircut, he looked in the mirror and said, "Honestly, this is so gender."_

## Verb

6. To produce or give rise to something; to breed. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: An old word meaning to cause or produce something, or to have young.

## Noun

7. A class or kind; a category of things grouped together by their shared nature. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A class, sort, or kind of thing.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The property that distinguishes connectors as male (fitting into another), female (receiving another), or genderless (able to join with one of the same type).
- (noun) Another word for voice in older grammar books: the class a verb belongs to, such as active, passive, or neuter.
- (noun) An Indonesian instrument resembling a xylophone, with tuned metal bars that are struck to produce notes, used in gamelan ensembles.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–5, 7** — Latin genere ("type, kind") passed into Old French as gendre and was borrowed into Middle English as gendre. Gender, genre, and genus are doublets, and the verb came later than the noun.
**Meaning 6** — Latin generāre gave Middle French gendrer, which became Middle English gendren.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/gender (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).