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Definition of gender
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a
: a subclass within a grammatical class (such as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (such as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms
b
: membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass
c
: an inflectional form (see
INFLECTION sense 2a) showing membership in such a subclass
2a
: SEX sense 1athe feminine gender
b
: the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex
c
: GENDER IDENTITYThose seeking state driver's licenses in Massachusetts are closer to being able to designate their gender as "X" instead of "male" or "female." The state Senate has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow for the nonbinary designation on licenses.— Steve LeBlancFacebook's message was clear when the social media network added new gender options for users on Thursday: the company is sensitive to a wide spectrum of gender identity and wants users to feel accommodated no matter where they see themselves on that spectrum.— Katy Steinmetz
gender
verb
gendered; gendering\ ˈjen-d(ə-)riŋ \
Definition of
gender (Entry 2 of 2)
: ENGENDER
Are gender and sex the same? Usage GuideMore Example SentencesPhrases Containing genderLearn More About gender
Are gender and sex the same? Usage Guide
Noun
The words
sex and
gender have a long and intertwined history. In the 15th century
gender expanded from its use as a term for a grammatical subclass to join
sex in referring to either of the two primary biological forms of a species, a meaning
sex has had since the 14th century; phrases like "the male sex" and "the female gender" are both grounded in uses established for more than five centuries. In the 20th century
sex and
gender each acquired new uses.
Sex developed its "sexual intercourse" meaning in the early part of the century (now its more common meaning), and a few decades later
gender gained a meaning referring to the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex, as in "gender roles." Later in the century,
gender also came to have application in two closely related compound terms:
gender identity refers to a person's internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female;
gender expression refers to the physical and behavioral manifestations of one's gender identity. By the end of the century
gender by itself was being used as a synonym of
gender identity.
Among those who study gender and sexuality, a clear delineation between
sex and
gender is typically prescribed, with
sex as the preferred term for biological forms, and
gender limited to its meanings involving behavioral, cultural, and psychological traits. In this dichotomy, the terms
male and
female relate only to biological forms (
sex), while the terms
masculine/
masculinity,
feminine/
femininity,
woman/
girl, and
man/
boy relate only to psychological and sociocultural traits (
gender). This delineation also tends to be observed in technical and medical contexts, with the term
sex referring to biological forms in such phrases as
sex hormones,
sex organs, and
biological sex. But in nonmedical and nontechnical contexts, there is no clear delineation, and the status of the words remains complicated. Often when comparisons explicitly between male and female people are made, we see the term
gender employed, with that term dominating in such collocations as
gender differences,
gender gap,
gender equality,
gender bias, and
gender relations. It is likely that
gender is applied in such contexts because of its psychological and sociocultural meanings, the word's duality making it dually useful. The fact remains that it is often applied in such cases against the prescribed use.
Usage of
sex and
gender is by no means settled. For example, while
discrimination was far more often paired with
sex from the 1960s through the 20th century and into the 21st, the phrase
gender discrimination has been steadily increasing in use since the 1980s and is on track to become the dominant collocation. Currently both terms are sometimes employed with their intended synonymy made explicit:
sex/gender discrimination,
gender (sex) discrimination.
Examples of gender in a Sentence
Noun Please state your name, birth date, and
gender. The adjective and noun must agree in number and
gender. Some languages do not use
genders.
Recent Examples on the Web: NounThe five digital pieces that sold for $2,162,500 depict his coming-of-age story and his struggle with
gender transition.— Dobrina Zhekova,
Travel + Leisure, 2 Apr. 2022The airline also regulated other aspects of dress, like hairstyle, makeup and jewelry, based on workers' assumed
gender.— Zoe Sottile,
CNN, 2 Apr. 2022The Republican worked instead to defend his signatures on bills that bar transgender girls and women from playing on girls high school and women's college sports teams and barring
gender affirming surgery for anyone under age 18.— Bob Christie,
The Arizona Republic, 1 Apr. 2022
See More
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'gender.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Phrases Containing gender
gender bender
gender confirmation surgery
gender dysphoria
gender expression
gender fluid
gender identity
gender identity disorder
gender-neutral
gender nonconforming
See More
First Known Use of gender
Noun
14th century, in the meaning defined at
sense 1a
Verb
14th century, in the meaning defined
above
History and Etymology for gender
Noun
Middle English
gendre, from Anglo-French
genre, gendre, from Latin
gener-, genus birth, race, kind, gender — more at
KIN
Verb
Middle English
gendren, from Anglo-French
gendrer, from Latin
generare — more at
GENERATE
Learn More About gender
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Time Traveler for
gender
The first known use of gender was in the 14th century
See more words from the same century
Dictionary Entries Near gender
gendarmerie
gender
gender bender
See More Nearby Entries
Statistics for gender
Last Updated
4 Apr 2022
Look-up Popularity
Top 1% of words
Cite this Entry
“Gender.”
Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,
Definition of GENDER. Accessed 6 Apr. 2022.
Style:MLA
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- TP
Terry Prothero
16 January, 2022
I was curious what the official dictionary definition of the word was. Typically, that's what I will go by. But this is one case where I'm going to use the original definition of the word instead. As noted, this isn't a settled issue. The reason being that the change in definition was political...See more
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15
2
- J
Jose
9 September, 2021
Gender is a word that describes if your male or female which is man or woman and boy or girl.
Reply
30
14
- A
Ada
15 December, 2021
with all this controvercy reguarding transgender people i wanted to double check that my definiton of gender and sex were accurate. It was, so, concerning the controvercy I thought with most things labled Male or Female it was sex- not gender. that created the need for the seperation of male and fe...See more
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1
1
- TP
Terry Prothero
16 January, 2022
Originally, sex referred to the reproductive act and to gender. Whether someone was male or female. The term gender was used in scientific papers this way to distinguish it from the reproductive act. Then in more recent years there was an effort to change the definition to include socially relat...See more
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More Definitions for
gender
gender
noun
gen·der | \ ˈjen-dər \
Kids Definition of gender
: the state of being male or female
: SEX
gender
noun
gen·der | \ ˈjen-dər \
Medical Definition of gender
1
: SEX sense 1a
2
: the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex
More from Merriam-Webster on
gender
Thesaurus:
All synonyms and antonyms for gender
Nglish:
Translation of gender for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English:
Translation of gender for Arabic Speakers
Britannica.com:
Encyclopedia article about gender
See Definitions and Examples »
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gen·der
/ˈjendər/
noun
- 1.either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female:"a condition that affects people of both genders"
- 2.(in languages such as Latin, Greek, Russian, and German) each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns and pronouns distinguished by the different inflections that they have and require in words syntactically associated with them. Grammatical gender is only very loosely associated with natural distinctions of sex.
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