Different Words - Gender - Noun-Parts Of Speech-ESL/Learn English Grammar

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III. Gender shown by Different Words.


32. In some of these pairs, the feminine and the masculine are
entirely different words; others have in their origin the same root.
Some of them have an interesting history, and will be noted below:--

bachelor--maid
boy--girl
brother--sister
drake--duck
earl--countess
father--mother
gander--goose
hart--roe
horse--mare
husband--wife
king--queen
lord--lady
wizard--witch
nephew--niece
ram--ewe
sir--madam
son--daughter
uncle--aunt
bull--cow
boar--sow

Girl originally meant a child of either sex, and was used for male
or female until about the fifteenth century.

Drake is peculiar in that it is formed from a corresponding feminine
which is no longer used. It is not connected historically with our
word _duck_, but is derived from _ened_ (duck) and an obsolete suffix
_rake_ (king). Three letters of _ened_ have fallen away, leaving our
word _drake_.

Gander and goose were originally from the same root word. _Goose_
has various cognate forms in the languages akin to English (German
_Gans_, Icelandic _gás_, Danish _gaas_, etc.). The masculine was
formed by adding _-a_, the old sign of the masculine. This _gansa_ was
modified into _gan-ra_, _gand-ra_, finally _gander_; the _d_ being
inserted to make pronunciation easy, as in many other words.

Mare, in Old English _mere_, had the masculine _mearh_ (horse), but
this has long been obsolete.

Husband and wife are not connected in origin. _Husband_ is a
Scandinavian word (Anglo-Saxon _husbonda_ from Icelandic _hús-bóndi_,
probably meaning house dweller); _wife_ was used in Old and Middle
English to mean woman in general.

King and queen are said by some (Skeat, among others) to be from
the same root word, but the German etymologist Kluge says they are
not.

Lord is said to be a worn-down form of the Old English _hlaf-weard_
(loaf keeper), written _loverd_, _lhauerd_, or _lauerd_ in Middle
English. Lady is from _hlœ¯¯fdige_ (_hlœ¯¯f_ meaning loaf, and
_dige_ being of uncertain origin and meaning).

Witch is the Old English _wicce_, but wizard is from the Old
French _guiscart_ (prudent), not immediately connected with _witch_,
though both are ultimately from the same root.

Sir is worn down from the Old French _sire_ (Latin _senior_).
Madam is the French _ma dame_, from Latin _mea domina_.


[Sidenote: Two masculines from feminines.]

33. Besides _gander_ and _drake_, there are two other masculine
words that were formed from the feminine:--

Bridegroom, from Old English _bry¯d-guma_ (bride's man). The _r_ in
_groom_ has crept in from confusion with the word _groom_.

Widower, from the weakening of the ending _-a_ in Old English to
_-e_ in Middle English. The older forms, _widuwa_--_widuwe_, became
identical, and a new masculine ending was therefore added to
distinguish the masculine from the feminine (compare Middle English
_widuer_--_widewe_).



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