Gender has the same relation to nouns that sex has to individuals, but while there are only two sexes, there are four genders: masculine - the masculine gender denotes all those of the male kind feminine - the feminine gender all those of the female kind neuter - the neuter gender denotes inanimate things or whatever is without life common - common gender is applied to animate beings, the sex of which for the time being is indeterminable, such as fish, mouse, bird, etc
Sometimes things which are without life as we conceive it and which, properly speaking, belong to the neuter type of noun, are, by a figure of speech called Personification, changed into either the masculine or feminine, as, for instance, we say of the sun, He is rising; of the moon, She is setting. |
