GENDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gender mean? 

• GENDER (noun)
  The noun GENDER has 2 senses:

1. a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives; in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness

2. the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles

  Familiarity information: GENDER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GENDER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives; in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

gender; grammatical gender

Hypernyms ("gender" is a kind of...):

grammatical category; syntactic category ((grammar) a category of words having the same grammatical properties)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gender"):

feminine (a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to females or to objects classified as female)

masculine (a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to males or to objects classified as male)

neuter (a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to inanimate objects (neither masculine nor feminine))

Sense 2

Meaning:

The properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

gender; sex; sexuality

Context example:

she didn't want to know the sex of the foetus

Hypernyms ("gender" is a kind of...):

physiological property (a property having to do with the functioning of the body)

Attribute:

male (being the sex (of plant or animal) that produces gametes (spermatozoa) that perform the fertilizing function in generation)

female (being the sex (of plant or animal) that produces fertilizable gametes (ova) from which offspring develop)

androgynous (having both male and female characteristics)

sexual (having or involving sex)

asexual; nonsexual (not having or involving sex)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gender"):

maleness; masculinity (the properties characteristic of the male sex)

androgyny; bisexuality; hermaphroditism (showing characteristics of both sexes)

femaleness; feminineness (the properties characteristic of the female sex)

 Context examples 

These charts allowed the team to derive and assign standardized scores for these skills to all the participants, regardless of age or gender.

(Oxytocin affects facial recognition, NIH)

The researchers noted that the tests were given to people of both genders from teens to geriatrics.

(Pollution Linked to Significant Decline in Human Cognition, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Thresholds for different age, gender, and patient populations exist.

(Borderline QTcB, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

"While there are many different types of people out there, these systems have an extremely limited view of what gender looks like."

(Facial recognition software has a gender problem, National Science Foundation)

EXAMPLE(S): The stratification criterion for gender can have permissible answers of male and female

(Defined Stratification Criterion Permissible Result, NCI Thesaurus/BRIDG)

Further work is needed on the effect of the residential environment on mental health from a gender perspective.

(Depression - men far more at risk than women in deprived areas, University of Cambridge)

It is calculated using an individual's serum creatinine measurement, age, gender, and race.

(Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate, NCI Thesaurus)

An individual who reports belonging to the cultural gender role distinction of male.

(Male Gender, NCI Thesaurus)

A fetus or infant who is larger than expected for the age or gender, or who has a birth weight greater than the 90th percentile.

(Large for Gestational Age, NCI Thesaurus)

Case reports also contain some demographic information about the patient (for example, age, gender, ethnic origin).

(Case report, NCI Dictionary)