GENDER, among grammarians, a division of nouns, or names, to distinguish the two sexes.
This was the original intention of gender; but, afterwards, other words which had no proper relation, either to the one sex or the other, had genders assigned them, rather out of caprice than reason; which is at length established by custom. Hence genders vary according to the languages, or even according to the words introduced from one language into another. Thus arbor, in Latin, is feminine; but arbre, in French, is masculine: and dens, in Latin, is masculine; but dent, in French, is feminine.