Latin nouns are grouped according to gender: masculine, feminine, neuter. In English, people that are male would be regarded as masculine, people that are female as feminine, and all other nouns as neuter. This is not the same as Latin. While it is true that male and female human beings and animals are often masculine and feminine in gender respectively e.g. servus (slave), medicus (doctor), lupus (wolf) are masculine, and puella (girl), fīlia (daughter), vacca (cow) are feminine, this is not a consistent rule. Furthermore, all inanimate objects and abstract ideas can be masculine or feminine or neuter; if you have studied French or German, you will already be familiar with this concept. It is vital to know the genders of nouns because other words such as adjectives and pronouns will change depending on the gender of the noun. In Latin, however, the ending of the noun will often tell you the gender. Here, we focus on three endings:
masculine: -US e.g. hortUS (garden)
feminine: -A e.g. viA (street)
neuter: -UM e.g. oppidUM (town)
People (animate nouns) are, as you would expect, either masculine or feminine in gender:
MASCULINE
- amīcus: friend (m)
- avus: grandfather
- deus: god
- dominus: master
- fīlius: son
- servus: slave
- discipulus: pupil (m)
- grammaticus: teacher (of grammar)
- marītus: husband
- medicus: doctor
- sagittārius: archer
FEMININE
- amīca: friend (f)
- āvia: grandmother
- dea: goddess
- domina: mistress
- fīlia: daughter
- ancilla: maidservant
- discipula: pupil (f)
- magistra: teacher (f)
- fēmina: woman
- puella: girl
- rēgīna: queen
Masculine nouns ending in -a
A small group of nouns ending in -a, which refer to what were considered traditionally male occupations, are masculine.
- agricola: farmer
- nauta: sailor
- poeta: poet
- animals
The gender of some nouns referring to animals also distinguish between whether the animal is naturally male or female:
MASCULINE
- taurus: bull
- equus: horse
- gallus: rooster
- lupus: wolf
- porcus: pig
FEMININE
- vacca: cow
- equa: mare
- gallina: hen
- lupa: she-wolf
- porca: sow
However, many nouns referring to animals are either grammatically masculine or feminine regardless of whether the animal itself is male or female e.g. pullus (chicken).
Inanimate objects
But all inanimate objects and abstract ideas (e.g. ‘happiness’) can be any gender:
- ānulus (masculine): ring
- hortus (masculine): garden
- taberna (feminine): shop
- via (feminine): street
- īra (feminine): anger
- laetitia (feminine): happiness
- templum (neuter): temple
- poculum (neuter): wine cup
- odium (neuter): hatred
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