GENDER (Fr. gendre, from Lat. genus, generis, race, kind), in grammar, is a distinc tion among words depending upon sex. Names applied to the male sex are said to be of the masculine as man, poet; those applied to the female sex, feminine, as woman, poetess; words that are neither masculine nor feminine are, as it was expressed in Latin, neutrius genes-is. of neither gender;" and from this phrase grammarians have come to speak, somewhat incorrectly, of this class of words as being "of the neuter gender," and hence to reckon three genders. In English, the distinction of gender in nouns is chiefly marked in the pronouns substituted for them—he, she, it. Gender, strictly .Speaking, is applicable only to living beings distinguishable as male and female; but by the figure of speech called personification (q.v.), inanimate objects are often spoken of as he and she. In the infancy of language, however, when every word was what we should now call a metaphor—when- every thing that moved or was seen to pro duce any effect, was conceived as actuated by a conscious will, like that which the spectator felt within himself—every prominent or interesting object in the universe would be invested with one or the other sex, according to the analogy it suggested. In Latin, accordingly, glodius, a sword, was considered masculine; Ilan's, a ship, as femi nine; and pomum, a fruit or apple, was thought of as without sex. Similarly, in San serit and Greek, the greater part of inanimate objects are either masculine or feminine, the others being neuter. In Hebrew, everything is either masculine or feminine, them being no neuter; and this is the ease in the modern languages derived from the Latin, viz., Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese—everything is either a he or a she.
German resembles the classic languages in making some inanimate objects masculine, some feminine, and others neuter. Thus at table, a man must speak of the spoon (der lb:1Tel) as " he," of the fork (die Babel) as " she," and of the knife (das maser) as "it." English—in this more rational than any of its congeners—has banished the spurious distinctions of gender that encumbered the Anglo-Saxon like the other Teutonic tongues, and attributes sex only to living beings.
In time highly inflected languages, there are certain terminations distinctive of the different genders. It is probable, indeed, that originally every noun, substantive, or adjective, had a suffix indicative of the sex, real or imaginary, of the object designated, although, like other inflections (q.v.), these suffixes of gender were in process of time
mutilated beyond recognition, or in many cases altogether worn off. The terminations most characteristic of the three genders in Latin are mas. us; fern. a; neut. um; corre sponding to the Greek os, J, on. In a great majority of the adjectives iu both those languages, the genders are thus marked. In English, the gender of a noun affects only the personal pronoun substituted for it; in most other languages, the adjectives (includ ing the articles) have different forms for the several genders—a useless complication, in the case of modern languages at least. See ADJECTIVE. • Of the terminations distinctive of gender observable in modern English, some are purely Latin, as in executor, executrix; the feminine -ess, as in countess, is borrowed from the French, and is also of classical origin. The prevalent feminine termination in Ger man is -inn, as in tanzerinn, a female dancer (Fr. danseuse); of this there are two instances in English, in the provincial carlin,; the fern, of earl, and vixen = Ger. filcheinn, a female fox. This affix was already in use in Latin, as in regina, a queen (reg(s), a king); and in this form it is used in Europe generally to temininize proper names; e.g., Georgina, 1f7lhelraina, Caroline.
In such pairs as son—daughter; man—maid; horse—mare; cock—hen; there is no ety mological relation between the words; they are from distinct roots. But with regard to hen, e.g., the Anglo-Saxon had the two forms, heat for the male, and hen for the female; and mare was originally applicable to both sexes, as horse still is (Fr. marechal, originally an officer who had charge of the horses). The oldest known form of the . Teutonic speech, the Gothic, had the two words, magus, son, and magaths, daughter, both from the root snag, to beget, or to make. Magaths has become in Ger. magtl, in Eng. maid; magus has been lost in the Teutonic tongues, but it is represented by the Celtic mac (son), evidently from the same root. King. queen, were in Sans. ganika, father, and Boni, mother, both from the root Ban, to generate, produce. The masculine form appears in old Ger. as chunig, in modern Ger. Nag, in Eng. king; the feminine became the Greek gyne, a woman, as well as the Saxon Mae, SW. guinea, old Eng. queue or quean, applied to a woman generally, and the modern, queen, the chief woman of the land.