Gender Meaning
/ˈd͡ʒɛndə/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounClass; kind.
nounSex (a category, either male or female, into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species).
Sentence Examples
Don't discriminate against people based on nationality, gender, or occupation.
She wrote on gender bias in science.
The survey asked respondents to state their gender.
CEFR Practice Quiz
In many languages, nouns have a ____ such as masculine or feminine.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The organization is committed to promoting ____ equality and ensuring that everyone has the same opportunities.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English gendre, borrowed from Old French gendre, borrowed from Latin genere (“type, kind”). Doublet of genre and genus. The verb developed after the noun.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[…]plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many[…]"
— c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
"In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse […] that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night."
— 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
"Gender does not necessarily have primacy in this respect. Economic class and ethnic differentiation can also be important relational hierarchies, […]."
— 2004, Wenona Mary Giles, Jennifer Hyndman, Sites of violence: gender and conflict zones, page 28:
"Although asari have one gender, they are not asexual. An asari provides two copies of her own genes to her offspring. The second set is altered in a unique process called melding.
During melding, an asari consciously attunes her nervous system to her partner's, sending and receiving electrical impulses directly through the skin. The partner can be another asari, or an alien of either gender. Effectively, the asari and her partner briefly become one unified nervous system."
— 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Asari: Biology Codex entry:
"I am a cross-dresser by pleasure and inclination, a transgenderal person. To me for human beings to express themselves along gender lines is a wonderful and uniquely human phenomena."
— 1979 January 8, Merissa Sherrill Lynn, “Statement”, in Newsletter, number 7, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
In many languages, nouns have a ____ such as masculine or feminine.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The organization is committed to promoting ____ equality and ensuring that everyone has the same opportunities.