Gender

(jen'dür.) [Fr.genre; L. genus.] (Gram.) The sexual distinction of nouns; thus nouns expre ive of the male sex are termed masculine of the female, feminine; while those which are of neither sex take the name of neuter. In Latin, the termination of a noun distinguishes the G. in many instances, us for the masculine, u the feminine, and um the neuter. Kindred terminations appear in other languages. In these the idea of sex is carried out in nouns that represent things which are really sexle , and would be called neuter in English. The latter language has very few terminations by which the G. are distinguished, such as count and counte . [s. 399]