MASCULINE, is more ordinarily used in grammar to signify the first and worthiest of the genders of nouns. See GENDER.
The masculine gender is that which belongs to the male kind, or something analogous to it.
Most substantives are ranged under the heads of masculine or feminine.—This, in some cases, is done with show of reason; but in others is merely arbitrary, and for that reason is found to vary according to the languages and even according to the words introduced from one language into another.—Thus the names of trees are generally feminine in Latin and masculine in the French.
Farther, the genders of the same word are sometimes varied in the same language. Thus alvus, according to Priscian, was anciently masculine, but is now become feminine. And navire, "a ship," in French, was anciently feminine, but is now masculine.