Prefixes - Gender - Noun-Parts Of Speech-ESL/Learn English Grammar

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I. Gender shown by Prefixes

[Sidenote: _Very few of class I._]

28. Usually the gender words _he_ and _she_ are prefixed to neuter
words; as _he-goat_--_she-goat_, _cock sparrow_--_hen sparrow_,
_he-bear_--_she-bear_.

One feminine, _woman_, puts a prefix before the masculine _man_.
_Woman_ is a short way of writing _wifeman_.


II. Gender shown by Suffixes.


29. By far the largest number of gender words are those marked by
suffixes. In this particular the native endings have been largely
supplanted by foreign suffixes.

[Sidenote: _Native suffixes._]

The native suffixes to indicate the feminine were _-en_ and _-ster_.
These remain in _vixen_ and _spinster_, though both words have lost
their original meanings.

The word _vixen_ was once used as the feminine of _fox_ by the
Southern-English. For _fox_ they said _vox_; for _from_ they said
_vram_; and for the older word _fat_ they said _vat_, as in _wine
vat_. Hence _vixen_ is for _fyxen_, from the masculine _fox_.

_Spinster_ is a relic of a large class of words that existed in Old
and Middle English,[1] but have now lost their original force as
feminines. The old masculine answering to _spinster_ was _spinner_;
but _spinster_ has now no connection with it.





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