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Gender

1. Kind; sort. One gender of herbs.

2. Sex, male or female.

3. a classification of nouns, primarily according to sex; and secondarily according to some fancied or imputed quality associated with sex. Gender is a grammatical distinction and applies to words only. Sex is natural distinction and applies to living objects. (R. Morris)

Adjectives and pronouns are said to vary in gender when the form is varied according to the gender of the words to which they refer.

Origin: OF. Genre, gendre (with excrescent d), F.genre, fr. L. Genus, generis, birth, descent, race, kind, gender, fr. The root of genere, gignere, to beget, in pass, to be born, akin to E. Kin. See kin, and cf. Generate, Genre, gentle, genus.