something belonging to the male, or the stronger of the two sexes. See MALE.

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 substances are ranged under the heads of masculine or feminine.—This, in some cases, is done with a 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 abeau, according to Priscian, was anciently masculine, but is now become feminine. And navire, "a ship," in French, was anciently feminine, but is now masculine.

MASCULINE Rhyme, in the French poetry, is that made with a word which has a strong, open, and accented pronunciation; as all words have, excepting those which have an e feminine in their last syllable. For instance, amour and jour, mort and fort, are masculine rhymes; and père and mère, gloire and memoire, are feminine. Hence also verses ending with a masculine rhyme, are called masculine verses, and those ending with a feminine rhyme, feminine verses. It is now a rule established among the French poets never to use the above two masculine or two feminine verses successively, except in the looser kind of poetry. Marot was the first who introduced this mixture of masculine and feminine verses, and Ronfard was the first who practised it with success. The masculine verses should always have a syllable less than the feminine ones.

MASCULINE Signs. Astrologers divide the signs into masculine and feminine; by reason of their qualities, which are either active, and hot or cold, accounted masculine; or passive, dry and moist, which are feminine.—On this principle they call the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, masculine; and the Moon and Venus feminine. Mercury, they suppose, partakes of the two. Among the signs, Aries, Libra, Gemini, Leo, Sagittarius, Aquarius, are masculine; Cancer, Capricornus, Taurus, Virgo, Scorpio, and Pisces are feminine.