Gender
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In English, some nouns are automatically thought of as masculine:
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king, man, actor
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and others as feminine:
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queen, woman, actress
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and everything else is referred to as “it”:
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pencil, desk, table
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In Greek, all nouns are assigned a gender. Some of them, like the
words for man and woman, go into the natural
classification. However, unlike English, nouns that we would
think of as “it” are arbitrarily classified into one
of these three categories. Here are some examples.
| Masculine: |
άντρας,
man, |
ράφτης,
tailor, |
κύκλος
circle |
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| Feminine: |
μητέρα,
mother, |
βασίλισσα,
queen, |
στέγη
roof |
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| Neuter: |
μολύβι,
pencil, |
λεφτό,
minute, |
κορίτσι
girl |
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As you’ll notice, there are some surprises, too -- would you
have guessed that the word for girl is neuter? The
question then becomes how you determine a noun’s gender.