Editing Gender (section)

==== As a grammatical category ====

The word was still widely used, however, in the specific sense of [[grammatical gender]] (the assignment of nouns to categories such as ''masculine'', ''feminine'' and ''neuter''). According to [[Aristotle]], this concept was introduced by the Greek philosopher [[Protagoras]].<ref>{{citation |title=Rhetoric |author=Aristotle |author-link=Aristotle |translator-last=Roberts |translator-first=William Rhys |url=https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.3.iii.html |date=1954 |publisher=[[Dover Publications|Dover]] |location=Mineola, NY |isbn=978-0-486-43793-4 |oclc=55616891 |quote=A fourth rule is to observe Protagoras' classification of nouns into male, female and inanimate. |page=127 }}</ref>
In 1926, [[Henry Watson Fowler]] stated that the definition of the word pertained to this grammar-related meaning: {{blockquote|"Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine g[ender], meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."<ref>[[Fowler's Modern English Usage]], 1926: p. 211.</ref>}}