The word for today is…
gender (noun) – 1. (Grammar) (a) A grammatical category, often designated as male, female, or neuter, used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.
(b) The fact of being classified as belonging to such a category: agreement in gender, number, and case.
- (a) Either of the two divisions, designated female and male, by which most organisms are classified on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions; sex.
(b) One’s identity as female or male or as neither entirely female nor entirely male.
(c) Females or males considered as a group.
Source : The Free Dictionary
Etymology : Circa 1300, “kind, sort, class, a class or kind of persons or things sharing certain traits,” from Old French gendre, genre “kind, species; character; gender” (12th century, Modern French genre), from stem of Latin genus (genitive generis) “race, stock, family; kind, rank, order; species,” also “(male or female) sex,” from PIE root *gene- “give birth, beget,” with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.
Also used in Latin to translate Aristotle’s Greek grammatical term genos. The grammatical sense is attested in English from late 14th century The unetymological -d- is a phonetic accretion in Old French.
The “male-or-female sex” sense is attested in English from early 15th century As sex took on erotic qualities in 20th century, gender came to be the usual English word for “sex of a human being,” in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous. Later often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963. Gender-bender is from 1977, popularized from 1980, with reference to pop star David Bowie.
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