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gender

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The definition of gender is a part of grammar that deals with renaming nouns as pronouns.

Gender means the sex of a person.

(noun)

An example of gender is renaming a male as he.
An example of gender is female.

Gender is defined as to cause to exist or develop.

(verb)

An example of gender is for a document to cause controversy.

See gender in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

Gram.
1. the formal classification by which nouns are grouped and inflected, or changed in form, so as to reflect certain syntactic relationships: pronouns, modifiers, and verbs may also be so inflected: although gender is not a formal feature of English, some nouns and the third person singular pronouns are distinguished according to sex or the lack of sex (Ex.: man or he, masculine gender; woman or she, feminine gender; door or it, neuter gender): in most Indo-European languages, as well as in many others, gender is not necessarily correlated with sex
2. any one of such groupings, or an inflectional form showing membership in such a group
the fact or condition of being a male or a female human being, esp. with regard to how this affects or determines a person's self-image, social status, goals, etc.

Origin: ME < OFr gendre, with unhistoric -d- < L genus (gen. generis), descent, origin, transl. Gr genos, race, class, sex: see genus

transitive verb, intransitive verb

engender

See gender in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun

Grammar
a. A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.
b. One category of such a set.
c. The classification of a word or grammatical form in such a category.
d. The distinguishing form or forms used.
Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
a. The condition of being female or male; sex.
b. Females or males considered as a group: expressions used by one gender.

transitive verb gen·dered, gen·der·ing, gen·ders

To engender.

Origin:

Origin: Middle English gendre

Origin: , from Old French, kind, gender

Origin: , from Latin genus, gener-; see genə- in Indo-European roots

Related Forms:

genˈder·less adjective

Usage Note: Traditionally, gender has been used primarily to refer to the grammatical categories of “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter,” but in recent years the word has become well established in its use to refer to sex-based categories, as in phrases such as gender gap and the politics of gender. This usage is supported by the practice of many anthropologists, who reserve sex for reference to biological categories, while using gender to refer to social or cultural categories. According to this rule, one would say The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient, but In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined. This distinction is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels.

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