Language/French/Grammar/Nouns-that-are-only-masculine-or-only-feminine-But-may-refer-to-both-men-and-women

Nouns that are only masculine or only feminine, but may refer to both men & women

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Nouns in French are either masculine or feminine. Unfortunately, there is no easy rules for predicting the gender of a noun. However, it is not necessary to learn all genders by heart as there are certain models that can be used to predict the genre with varying degrees of accuracy. Be careful to remember that there are always exceptions to these models.

Some nouns that have only one gender refer to jobs or professions for both men and women.

Consider broadening your understanding by checking out these related lessons: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Quand utiliser "et" ou "est" ? & Quand utiliser et ou est ?.

Examples of Masculine Nouns

The following nouns are all masculine:

French Masculine Noun	Translation
un architecte	an architect
un chef	a chef
un auteur	an author
un compositeur	a composer
un ingénieur	an engineer
un forçat	a convict
un magistrat	a magistrate
un juge	a judge
un médecin	a doctor
un peintre	a painter
un sculpteur	a sculptor
un professeur	a teacher
un témoin	a witness
un vampire	a vampire

"femme" can be added

When these nouns refer to women, to clarify that the profession concerns a woman and not a man, the word "femme" can be added before or after the noun.

Examples

• "un ingénieur femme" & "une femme ingénieur"
• "un médecin femme" & "une femme médecin"

Pay attention to the use of the masculine article "un" in the first case and the feminine article "une" in the second case.

• NB: Nowadays the term "une femme ingénieure" and "une femme médecine" are preferred.

Use the context do determine the sex

More often, the context makes it possible to determine the sex of the person:

• Elle est médecin dans une clinique à Paris

She is a doctor in a clinic in Paris

Some titles are only masculine

Some titles are only masculine, i.e. le Maire 'the Mayor', le Juge 'the Judge', le Notaire 'the Solicitor', etc. A woman playing this role will be called Madame le Maire, Madame le Juge, etc.

Note

This is an area that has generated a lot of controversy. While a few years ago the above list contained writer and lawyer as exclusively masculine terms, nowadays "écrivaine" and "avocate" are preferred.

It is also preferable to use "Madame la maire" or "Madame la mairesse" because the fact of feminizing the language has become a positive development in French society.

• Read more about Feminization of titles and functions in THIS article.

Nouns only feminine in gender

There are a small number of nouns which are only feminine in gender, but which may refer both to men and women:

• personne : person.
• recrue : recruit
• sentinelle : sentry
• star/vedette : star (in the entertainment business)
• victime : victim

Personne

• une personne" meaning "a person" is feminine.
• "personne" meaning 'nobody' is masculine:

Examples

• Personne n'est venu

Nobody came

• Cette personne est venue

That person came

Gender of Nouns (all lessons)

Table of Contents

• General Lesson: How to Guess the Gender of French Nouns
• Gender signalled by the final letters of the written forms of nouns
• Nouns which refer both to males and to females
• Nouns which change form when they refer to males or to Females
• Nouns which change meaning when they change gender
• Nouns which have the same spoken form but two different written forms, with different genders and different meanings
• Gender of countries, towns, islands, rivers, regions and states
• Gender of makes of vehicle and machines
• Names of ships and restaurants
• Nouns which are only masculine or only feminine, but can refer both to men and women
• Nouns with genders which English speakers often get wrong
• Gender of compound nouns

Other Chapters

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

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Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

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Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

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Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

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Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

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Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

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Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

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Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

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Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

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Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

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The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

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The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

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Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

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Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

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Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

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Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

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Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds

Other Lessons

• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English Order of cardinal numbers and adjectives
• When use ou or où
• Verb agreement with fractions
• Indirectly transitive in French but directly transitive in English
• Confusions English and French direct object
• “être” and “avoir” with verbs used intransitively and transitively
• y and en in French where the English translation has no preposition
• Plurals
• Adverb—adjective compounds
• Plural forms of adjectives — Adjectives which end in eau
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Restrictions on possible combinations
• Object pronouns in coordinated clauses
• Double object constructions with no preposition
• How to use Be