masculine
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
adj.having qualities that people traditionally think of as belonging to men, such as strength or a deep voice.
adj.having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men, often in a stereotypical or cultural sense.
Simple“The room was decorated in a very masculine style with dark leather and wood.”
In context“The marketing campaign relied on traditionally masculine imagery to appeal to a demographic that valued ruggedness and independence.”
SynonymsmanlyvirileAntonyms - 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
adj.belonging to a group of words that are treated as male in some languages, like French or German.
adj.relating to the grammatical gender typically associated with male beings, though often applied to inanimate objects in gendered languages.
Simple“In Spanish, the word for 'book' is masculine, so you use 'el' instead of 'la'.”
In context“Students often struggle to memorise which German nouns are masculine and which are neuter, as the logic is not always intuitive.”
UsageIn linguistics, this refers to a formal category rather than biological sex.
- 03 C1 Advanced
n.the male gender or a word that belongs to the male category in grammar.
n.the masculine grammatical gender or a specific linguistic form belonging to that category.
Simple“In this language, the adjective changes its ending when it follows the masculine.”
In context“The professor explained how the masculine is often used as the default gender in many Romance languages when referring to mixed groups.”
UsageUsually functions as an uncountable noun when referring to the category, or countable when referring to a specific word.
Antonyms
“It’s a very masculine story but we wanted strong female characters too – we had Maxine Peake and Rebecca Hall.”
“I thought if I was coming at it as drag, what would I perceive to be very “masculine” traits to put into the character?”