THE NOUN: GENDER
You know that living
beings are of either the male or the female sex. Now compare the words in the
following pairs:
{Boy, Girl
{Lion, Lioness
{Hero, Heroine
{Cock –sparrow, Hen – sparrow
What do you notice?
The first word of each pair is
the name of a male animal.
The second word of each pair is
the name of a female animal
A noun that denotes a male animal
is said to be of theMasculine Gender. [Gender
comes from Latin genus, kind or sort.]
A noun that denotes a fenale
animal is said to be the Feminine
Gender.
A noun that denotes either a male or a female is said to be the Common Gender; as
Parent, child, friend, pupil, servant, thief, relation, enemy, cousin,
Person, orphan, student, baby, monarch, neighbour, infant.
A noun that denotes a thing that is neither male nor female (i.e, thing without life) is said to be of
the Neuter Gender; as,
Book, pen room, tree,
[Neuter means neither, that is neither male nor female)
