masculine

/ˈmæskjələn/

/ˈmæskjulɪn/

Other forms: masculines; masculinely

If something’s masculine, it’s related to men. When you hear a masculine voice outside greeting your neighbor, you know it’s your dad and not your mom.

Masculine can describe people or things that have qualities often associated with men. If someone has a masculine appearance, the person is probably tall and strong. If your new jacket has masculine tailoring, that means it’s cut like a man’s jacket. Masculine can also refer to words. In many languages, words — especially nouns — are given a gender. If you’ve studied French or Spanish, you know you need to figure out which article to use with a masculine noun.

Definitions of masculine

1. adjective

   associated with men and not with women
   synonyms:

   manful, manlike, manly

   possessing qualities befitting a man

   male

   being the sex (of plant or animal) that produces gametes (spermatozoa) that perform the fertilizing function in generation

   butch, macho

   markedly masculine in appearance or manner

   male, manful, manlike, manly, virile

   characteristic of a man

   mannish

   characteristic of a man as distinguished from a woman

   antonyms:

   feminine

   associated with women and not with men

   female

   being the sex (of plant or animal) that produces fertilizable gametes (ova) from which offspring develop

   fair

   attractively feminine

   distaff, female

   characteristic of or peculiar to a woman

   maidenlike, maidenly

   befitting or characteristic of a maiden

   powder-puff

   used of competitive activities in which only women take part

   feminine

   of grammatical gender
2. adjective

   of grammatical gender
   antonyms:

   feminine

   of grammatical gender

   neuter

   of grammatical gender

   feminine

   associated with women and not with men
3. noun

   a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to males or to objects classified as male
   type of:

   gender, grammatical gender

   a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives; in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness
4. adjective

   (music or poetry) ending on an accented beat or syllable
   “a masculine cadence”

   “the masculine rhyme of `annoy, enjoy'”

   synonyms:

   accented, stressed

   bearing a stress or accent