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

MASCULINE is used in grammar to signify the first and worthiest of the genders of nouns. 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. In some cases this is done with a show of reason; but in others it is merely arbitrary, and 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. Further, the genders of the same word are sometimes varied in the same language. Thus albus, according to Priscian, was anciently masculine, but is now feminine; and navire, a ship, in French, was anciently feminine, but is now masculine.