among grammarians, a division of nouns, or names, to distinguish the two sexes. This was the original intention of gender; but afterwards words, which had no proper relation either to the one sex or the other, had genders assigned them, and this was 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. The oriental languages frequently neglect the use of genders, and the Persian language has none at all. The Greeks and Latins generally content themselves with expressing the genders by different terminations; as bonus equus, a good horse; bona equa, a good mare. But in English we frequently go farther, and express the difference of sex by different words, as boar, sow; boy, girl; buck, doe; bull, cow; cock, hen; dog, bitch, and so of others. We have only about twenty-four feminines distinguished from the males by the variation of the termination of the male into ess; of which number are abbot, abess; count, countess; actor, actress; heir, heiress; prince, princess, which is all that our language knows of any thing like genders. The Greek and Latin, besides the masculine and feminine, have the neuter, common, and doubtful gender; and likewise the epicene, or promiscuous, which under one single gender and termination includes both the kinds.

GENEALOGY, an enumeration of a series of ancestors, or a summary account of the relations and alliances of a person or family, both in the direct and collateral line. The word is Greek, γεναλογία, which is formed of γένος, race or lineage, and λόγος, discourse.