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Glite Dictionary
grammatical gender

grammatical gender

1 7.7
A system in some languages that puts nouns into groups like masculine or feminine
  • noun
  • /ˈɡræmətɪkəl ˈdʒɛndər/
  • Specialized
translation icon : género gramatical
  • To correctly use articles and adjectives in Arabic, one must first identify the grammatical gender of the noun.

Examples

  • In Spanish, every noun has a grammatical gender, which determines the form of accompanying adjectives.

  • Translation allows for the deconstruction of the grammatical gender of the personified, active image inherited from the original canonical text.

    Academic text (2004)

  • In a task involving the naming of objects that lacked natural gender (e.g., stella, star feminine), Dante was able to accurately report the meaning and grammatical gender of words that he could not name.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The grammatical gender of a word can change the meaning of a sentence, especially in languages like German and French.

Synonyms

gender
vsgrammatical gender
  • Specialized
56 4.2

A class of nouns and words like masculine or feminine that change word forms

is a broader system grouping nouns, pronouns, and adjectives into such categories
linga
vsgrammatical gender
  • Specialized
9.9

The gender of a noun in Sanskrit, like masculine or feminine

is the general system grouping words into those categories across languages

Surface Forms

grammatical gender singular
grammatical genders plural

Morphology

grammatical + gender

The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'grammatical' (pertaining to grammar) and 'gender' (a category or agreement class), so it denotes a noun-classifying system that affects agreement. This is a cross-linguistically common concept and follows transparent semantic composition, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents should be able to infer the meaning.

Etymology

Grammatical gender comes from the idea of putting words into groups by gender, called 'masculine', 'feminine' or 'neuter'. That's why it means a system where words must 'agree' with each other, for example when adjectives and articles match a noun.