Masculine

How to spell masculine

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce masculine

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does masculine mean?

1. adjectiveHaving qualities or features traditionally associated with men.

Masculine in a sentence

• The tailored suit gave her outfit a sharply masculine cut.

• The cologne had a deep, masculine scent of leather and wood.

Where does masculine come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin masculinus, meaning 'male' or 'of the male sex', which was built on masculus, a diminutive of mas, the plain Latin noun for a male. English took it in during the 1300s by way of Old French masculin, and from the start it carried both the grammatical sense, marking words of male gender, and the broader sense of qualities associated with men. The same Latin masculus also lies behind the rather more humble word 'male' itself, which travelled through French as masle and then male. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle and end: the '-cu-' is easy to drop or scramble, and the ending is the Latinate '-ine' rather than the more familiar '-in' or '-ene'. Remembering the link to masculus, with its 'scu' cluster, helps fix the order of those letters.

How the word is built

• mascul- (from Latin masculus: male)
• -ine (adjective suffix forming 'of the nature of')