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.