gender

English Online Dictionary. What means gender‎? What does gender mean?

English

Alternative forms

• (grammar: grammatical gender): g. (abbreviation)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɛndə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɛndɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɛndə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: gen‧der

Etymology 1

From Middle English gendre, borrowed from Old French gendre, borrowed from Latin genere (“type, kind”). Doublet of genre and genus. The verb developed after the noun.

Noun

gender (countable and uncountable, plural genders)

2. (obsolete) Class; kind. [14th–19th c.]
4. (now sometimes proscribed) Sex (a category, either male or female, into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species). [from 15th c.]

   the gene is activated in both genders

   The effect of the medication is dependent upon age, gender, and other factors.

   • 1723, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, letter, 7 December:

     To say truth, I have never had any great esteem for the generality of the fair sex; and my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them […] .
6. Identification as a man, a woman, or something else, and association with a (social) role or set of behavioral and cultural traits, clothing, etc; a category to which a person belongs on this basis. (Compare gender role, gender identity.) [from 20th c.]
8. (grammar) A division of nouns and pronouns (and sometimes of other parts of speech) into masculine or feminine, and sometimes other categories like neuter or common, and animate or inanimate. [from 14th c.]
10. (grammar) Synonym of voice (“particular way of inflecting or conjugating verbs”)
12. (hardware) The quality which distinguishes connectors, which may be male (fitting into another connector) and female (having another connector fit into it), or genderless or androgynous (capable of fitting together with another connector of the same type). [from 20th c.]
13. Filter-avoidance spelling of sex. (censored)

Usage notes

Sometimes, sex and gender are distinguished.

Synonyms

• (class or kind): genre
• (biological sex): sex
• (categorization): gendersex
• (grammar, of verbs): voice

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

See also

• (sex) female, male, hermaphroditic; man, woman, hermaphrodite
• (identification) genderqueer, bigender, non-binary, transgender, androgyne, crossdresser, hijra, kathoey, transsexual, two-spirit
• (grammar) common, feminine, masculine, neuter

Verb

gender (third-person singular simple present genders, present participle gendering, simple past and past participle gendered)

1. (sociology) To assign a gender to (a person); to perceive as having a gender; to address using terms (pronouns, nouns, adjectives...) that express a certain gender.
2. (sociology) To perceive (a thing) as having characteristics associated with a certain gender, or as having been authored by someone of a certain gender.

Related terms

• misgender
• ungender, degender
• regender

Translations

Adjective

gender (comparative more gender, superlative most gender)

1. (transgender slang) Evoking positive feelings regarding gender, like gender euphoria or gender envy.

Etymology 2

From Middle English gendren, genderen, from Middle French gendrer, from Latin generāre.

Verb

gender (third-person singular simple present genders, present participle gendering, simple past and past participle gendered)

1. (archaic) To engender.
   • 1854, Robert Gordon (D.D., Minister of the Free High Church, Edinburgh.), Christ as Made Known to the Ancient Church: an Exposition of the Revelation of Divine Grace, as Unfolded in the Old Testament Scriptures, page 400:

     […] being a stranger to those restrictions which were afterwards laid on his posterity by the Mosaic law, and which gendered a servile frame of spirit.
2. (archaic or obsolete) To breed.
   • Leviticus 19:19 (KJV):

     Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.

Translations

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Indonesian gender, from Javanese ꦒꦼꦤ꧀ꦢꦺꦂ (gendèr), from Old Javanese gĕnder.

Alternative forms

• gendèr

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡənˈdɛː(r)/

Noun

gender (plural genders)

1. An Indonesian musical instrument resembling a xylophone, used in gamelan music.

Further reading

• gender in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “gender”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “gender”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “gender, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “gender”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “gender”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “gender” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2025.

Anagrams

• gerned

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English gender. Doublet of genre and genus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɣɛn.dər/, /ˈdʒɛn.dər/
• Hyphenation: gen‧der

Noun

gender m or n (plural genders)

1. gender (mental analog of sex)

Usage notes

Dutch lacks words to distinguish gender from sex, using the words geslacht or sekse to encompass both concepts. The term gender in Dutch has been recently introduced for cases when a clear distinction is needed, such as in the distinction between transgender (feeling oneself to be different from one's birth sex) and transsexual (having or desiring the sexual organs of the sex opposite to those one had at birth).

Related terms

• genderdysforie
• transgender

German

Pronunciation

Verb

gender

1. inflection of gendern:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative

Indonesian

Etymology 1

Internationalism, unadapted borrowing from English gender, from Middle English gendre, gender (see also gendres), from Middle French gendre, genre, from Latin genus (“kind, sort”). Doublet of genus, genre, and jenis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɛndər/
• Rhymes: -dər, -ər, -r
• Hyphenation: gèn‧dêr

Noun

gèndêr (plural gender-gender)

1. gender:
   1. sex (a category, either male or female, into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species).

      Synonyms: jantina, jenis kelamin, kelamin, seks

   2. Identification as a man, a woman, or something else, and association with a (social) role or set of behavioral and cultural traits, clothing, etc; a category to which a person belongs on this basis.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Javanese ꦒꦼꦤ꧀ꦢꦺꦂ (gendèr), from Old Javanese gĕnder.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡənˈdɛr/
• Rhymes: -dɛr, -ɛr, -r
• Hyphenation: gên‧dèr

Noun

gêndèr (plural gender-gender)

1. (music) An Javanese gamelan instrument.

Further reading

• “gender” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English gender.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʐɛn.dɛr/
• Rhymes: -ɛndɛr
• Syllabification: gen‧der

Adjective

gender (not comparable, no derived adverb)

1. (humanities, relational) genderism

   Synonym: genderowy

Noun

gender m inan (indeclinable)

1. gender (identification as a man, a woman, or something else)
2. (humanities) gender studies, genderism

   Synonyms: gender studies, genderyzm

Declension

Indeclinable

or

Derived terms

Related terms

Further reading

• gender in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• gender in Polish dictionaries at PWN