gender

gender
noun

(Grammar)(in languages such as Latin, French, and German) each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns and pronouns distinguished by the different inflections which they have and which they require in words syntactically associated with them. Grammatical gender is only very loosely associated with natural distinctions of sex
(语法)（名词、代词的）性
■[mass noun]the property (in nouns and related words) of belonging to such a class
（名词和相关词）类别上的内在功能
determiners and adjectives usually agree with the noun in gender and number.
限定词和形容词通常与名词在性和数上保持一致。
[mass noun]the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)
（多指与社会或文化方面而非生理上的差异有关的）性别状态
traditional concepts of gender.
传统的性别概念。
[as modifier]gender roles.
性别角色。
■[count noun]the members of one or other sex
男性，女性
differences between the genders are encouraged from an early age.
从很小的时候就强调男女有别。

语源

late Middle English: from Old French gendre (modern genre), based on Latin genus 'birth, family, nation'. The earliest meanings were 'kind, sort, genus' and 'type or class of noun, etc.' (which was also a sense of Latin genus)

用法

The word gender has been used since the 14th century primarily as a grammatical term, referring to the classes of noun in Latin, Greek, German, and other languages designated as masculine, feminine, or neuter. It has also been used since the 14th century in the sense ‘the state of being male or female’, but this did not become a common standard use until the mid 20th century. Although the words gender and sex both have the sense ‘the state of being male or female’, they are typically used in slightly different ways: sex tends to refer to biological differences, while gender tends to refer to cultural or social ones

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