IV. By THE MEANING. Names of males are Masculine, names of females are Feminine; as, John, Mary.

§ 145. Some words have the same termination for both masculine and feminine. These are of the Common Gender; as, Parent, guardian, cousin, student, botanist, witness.

Some words are used only in the feminine; as, Laundress, seamstress, brunette, dowager, jointress, mantua-maker, milliner, shrew, virago, siren, amazon.

Some masculine words are extended to mean the whole species; as, man, to denote the human race, females as well as males. Some feminine words are used for the species; as, Geese, ducks.

§ 146. As sex is a natural distinction, and as gender is a grammatical one, we find they do not exactly coincide with each other. Thus gladius, a sword, is of the masculine gender in Latin, and hasta, a lance, is of the feminine gender. In German, weib, a woman, is neuter. The English language is philosophically correct in considering things without life of the neuter gender; yet, by an easy analogy, the imagination conceives of inanimate things as animated, and distinguished

by sex. A ship the sailors call she, even when her name is masculine. "You know," says Mr. Cobbett, "that our country folks in Hampshire call almost every thing he or she. It is curious to observe that the country laborers give the feminine appellation to those things only which are more closely identified with themselves, and by the qualities and conditions of which their own efforts and character as workmen are affected. A mower calls his scythe a she, the plowman calls his plow a she; but a prong or a shovel, which passes from hand to hand, and which is appropriated to no particular laborer, is called a he."-English Grammar, Letter V.

Now, although Mr. Cobbett's statements may account for a sailor calling his ship she, they will not account for the custom of giving to the sun a Masculine, and to the moon a Feminine Pronoun; still less will they account for the circumstance of the Germans reversing the Gender, and making the sun Feminine and the moon Masculine.

§ 147. Let there be a period in the history of a nation wherein the sun and moon are dealt with, not as inanimate masses of matter, but as animated divinities. Let there, in other words, be a period in the history of a nation wherein dead things are personified, and wherein there is a mythology. Let an object like the sun be deemed a male, and an object like the moon a female divinity.

The Germans say, the sun in her glory, the moon in his wane. This difference between the usage of the two languages, like so many others, is explained by the influence of Classical Languages upon the English: "Mundilfori had two children: a son, Mani (Moon), and a daughter, Sôl (Sun)." In the Classical Languages, however, Phœbus and Sol are Masculine, and Luna and Diana Feminine. Hence it is that, although in Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon the sun is Feminine, it is in English Masculine. It was, perhaps, under the influence of the Saxon associations that Shakspeare calls "the blessed sun a fair wench in flame-colored taffeta."

§ 148. 1. In words like Baron, baroness, it is a general rule that the Feminine form is derived from the Masculine,

and not the Masculine from the Feminine; as, peer, peeress. The word widower is an exception. In the word wizard, from witch, ard is the sign of the Masculine.

2. The words Shepherdess, huntress, and hostess are faulty, the radical part of the word being Germanic and the secondary Classical; indeed, in strict English Grammar, the termination -ess has no place at all. It is a Classic, not a Gothie element.

3. The termination -inn, so current in German as the equivalent to -ess, and as a Feminine affix (Freund a friend; Freundinna female friend), is found only in one or two words in English:

"There were five carlins in the South,

That fell upon a scheme

To send a lad to London town,

To bring them tidings hame."-BURNS.

Carlin means an old woman: Icelandic Kerling; Swedish Käring; Danish Kælling. Root, Carl. Vixen is a true Feminine derivative from fox; German Füchsinn. Bruin the bear, may be either a female form, as in Old High-German, Përohe-bear, Perinn-she-bear, or it may be the Norse form, Björn bear, male or female. Words like mar. gravine and landgravine prove nothing, being scarcely naturalized.

Sangëstre, a female singer.
Bacestre, a female baker.

4. The termination -str, as in Webster, songster, and Baxter, was originally a Feminine affix. Thus, Anglo-Saxon, Sangere, a male singer, Bäcere, a male baker, Fiðelere, a male fiddler, Vebbere, a male weaver, Rædere, a male reader, Seamere, a male seamer,

were

opposed to

Fidelstre, a female fiddler.

Vebbestre, a female weaver.

Rædestre, a female reader.

Seamestre, a female seamer.

5. The same is the case in the present Dutch of Holland; e. g., Spookstera female fortune-teller; Bakstera baking-woman; Waschster a washerwoman (Grimm, D. G., iii., p. 339). The word spinster still retains its original Feminine force.

6. The words Songstress and seamstress, besides being, as far as concerns the intermixture of languages, in the pre

dicament of shepherdess, have, moreover, a double Feminine termination: 1st. -str, of Germanic; 2d. -ess, of Classical origin. 7. In the word Heroine we have a Greek termination, just as ix is a Latin, and -inn a German one. It must not, however, be considered as derived from hero by any process of the English language, but be dealt with as a separate importation from the Greek language.

8. The form Deaconess is not wholly unexceptionable, since the termination -ess is of Latin, the root deacon of Greek origin, this Greek origin being rendered all the more conspicuous by the spelling, deacon (from diaconos), as compared with the Latin decanus.

9. It is uncertain whether Kit, as compared with cat, be a Feminine form or a Diminutive one; or, in other words, whether it mean a female cat or a young cat. See the chap

ter on the Diminutives.

10. Goose, Gander.-One peculiarity in this pair of words has already been indicated. In the older forms of the word goose, such as xv, Greek; anser, Latin; gans, German, we have the proof that, originally, there belonged to the word the sound of the letter n. In the forms οδούς, ὀδόντος, Greek; dens, dentis, Latin; zahn, German; tooth, English, we find the analogy that accounts for the ejection of the n and the lengthening of the Vowel preceding. With respect, however, to the d in gander, it is not easy to say whether it is inserted in one word or omitted in the other. Neither can we

give the precise power of the -er. The following forms (taken from Grimm, iii., p. 341) occur in the different Gothic dialects: Gans, Fem.; ganazzo, Masc., Old High-German. Gós, Fem.; gandra, Masc., Anglo-Saxon. Gas, Icelandic, Fem.; gaas, Danish, Fem.; gassi, Icelandic, Masc.; gasse, Danish, Masc. Ganser, ganserer, gansart, gänserich, gander, Masculine forms in different New German dialects.

11. Observe, the form gänserich has a Masculine termination. The word täuberich, in provincial New German, has the same form and the same power. It denotes a male dove; taube, in German, signifying a dove. In Gänserich and Täuberich we find preserved the termination -rich (or -rik), with a masculine power.

Of this termination we have a remnant

preserved, in English, in the curious word drake. To duck the word drake has no etymological relations whatever. It is derived from a word with which it has but one letter in common, viz., the Latin anasa duck. Of this the root is anat-, as seen in the Genitive Case, anatis. In Old HighGerman we find the form anetrekhoa drake; in Provincial New High-German there is enterich and äntrecht, from whence come the English and Low German form drake. (Grimm, D. G., iii., p. 341.)

12. Peacock, Peahen, Bridegroom.-In these compounds it is not the words pea and bride that are rendered Masculine or Feminine by the addition of cock, hen, and groom, but it is the words cock, hen, and groom that are modified by prefixing pea and bride.

§ 149. In all cases where the sex is sufficiently indicated by a separate word, names may be used to denote females without a distinct termination. Thus, although females are rarely soldiers, sailors, philosophers, there is not the least impropriety in the use of these terms for females; for the sex is clearly indicated by the term she or female, or the appropriate name of the woman; as, Joan of Arc was a warrior. The masculine term has the general meaning expressing both male and female, and is always employed when the office, occupation, or profession, and not the sex of the individual, is chiefly to be expressed. The feminine term is used in these cases only when discriminations of sex are indispensably necessary. This is illustrated by the following examples: If I say the "poets of the age are distinguished more by correctness of taste than by sublimity of conception," I clearly include in the term poet both male and female writers of poetry. If I say "she is the best poetess of the country," I assign her the superiority over those of her own sex. If I say "she is the best poet of the country," I pronounce her supe rior to all other writers of poetry, both male and female.

NUMBERS OF NOUNS.

§ 150. NUMBER is the distinction between One and More than one, usually expressed by some difference in termina