Note

Gender distinctions used with nouns are for the most part of only historical importance.
This section can be skipped entirely the first time through this text.

Gender is a distinction with regard to sex. While many languages have morphological gender changes in the form of nouns and the adjectives that modify those nouns, English does not.  English has some nouns that are most commonly associated with a single gender;  however, many of these distinctions, especially with respect to nouns associated with human beings, are disappearing.
    
There are three genders:

• masculine
• feminine
• neuter

    
The gender of singular nouns has some importance when used with a pronoun that represents it. This is  because pronouns in the third person singular have masculine, feminine, and neuter forms.
Nouns that denote males are of the masculine gender. Nouns which denote females are of the feminine gender. Nouns which do not explicitly denote either males or females are of the neuter gender. Most nouns denote either males or females.

For example

Man, king, and father are masculine nouns.
Woman, queen, and mother are feminine nouns.
Tree, rock, and paper are neuter nouns.
Parent, child, cousin, friend, and neighbor can be either masculine
or feminine but are not neuter.

    
Nouns that can be either masculine or feminine are said to be of the common gender. The actual gender of such nouns can generally be determined by the context of the noun. In current English, there is little need to make gender distinctions with nouns.Using the personification figure of speech, masculine or feminine gender can be applied to inanimate objects.  Thus, we say of a ship, “She sails well”; of the sun, “He rises in the east.” The use of this figure imparts peculiar beauty and animation to language. 

For example

Her flag streams wildly, and her fluttering sails pant to be on their flight.
The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews.

In speaking of most animals and sometimes even of infants the distinction of sex is not observed.

For example

In the following sentence:
And it became a serpent, and Moses fled from before it.
the noun serpent is neuter. This is shown by the use of the neuter pronoun it to replace the noun serpent. In the following sentence:
The child was lying in its cradle.
the noun child is treated as neuter.

An animal distinguished for boldness, size, or any other marked quality often referred to as masculine in gender when the sex is not known. 

For example

The eagle is the king of birds.

Methods of Distinguishing the Sexes

Distinguishing the sexes can be done using different words.

Some originally masculine nouns have no corresponding feminine form even thought the noun now refers to a person of either gender.

For example

baker
brewer
carrier

Some originally feminine nouns have no corresponding masculine form even though the noun now refers to a person of either gender.

For example

laundress
seamstress
nurse

At this point proceed to Exercise 4.