Gender of Nouns in Spanish

In Spanish, there are 2 types of nouns:

Masculine
Feminine

The grammatical gender of a noun has implications in the other words of the sentence. Adjectives, pronouns and determiners must have the same gender of the noun to which they refer.

Masculine rules

In most cases, we can tell if a noun is feminine or masculine by looking at its ending.

Next, we will look at the most common rules for the masculine gender.

Masculine endings

Often, we can tell whether a noun is masculine if it ends in:

Masculine Ending	Example	Meaning
-o	el perro	the dog
-e	el puente	the bridge
[consonant]*	el lápiz	the pencil

NOTE: usually when a word ends in a consonant is masculine but not endings "-ión" and "-d" , which are often feminine.

Groups of masculine words

Some groups of words are always masculine:

occupations usually belonging to men
el zapatero, el carpintero, el panadero
the shoemaker, the carpenter, the baker
musical notes
el Do, el Re, el Mi, el Fa, el Sol, el La, el Si
C, D, E, F, G, A, B
rivers
El (río) Guadalquivir, el (río) Tajo, el (río) Sena
Guadalquivir river, Tajo river, Sena river
mountains and volcanoes
el Mulhacén, los Pirineos, el Teide
Mulhacen, Pyrenees, Mount Teide
seas and oceans
el (mar) Mediterráneo, el (océano) Atlántico, el (mar) Cantábrico
the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Cantabric Sea
numbers
el uno, el dos, el tres...
one, two, three...
days of the week
el lunes, el martes...
Monday, Tuesday...
colors
el verde, el azul, el naranja
green, blue, orange

Feminine rules

Often, we can tell whether a noun is feminine if it ends in:

Feminine Ending	Example	Meaning
-a	la mesa	the table
-d	el puente	the bridge
-ión	la dirección	the address

Unfortunately, there are many exceptions, some of the them:

el idioma
the language

el policía
the policeman

Forming Feminine Nouns

Oft, the construction of the feminine noun is easy if we know the masculine noun. There are a few simple rules:

If the word ends in a consonant an "-a" is added
El doctor --> La doctora
The doctor --> The doctor (female)
If the word ends in a "-o" or a "-e", the vowel changes to "-a"
El niño --> La niña
The boy --> The girl
El jefe --> La jefa
The boss --> The boss (female)

But sometimes we can not form the feminine that easily. Although the root of the word does not change, the ending is completely different:

El actor --> La actriz
Actor --> Actress

El gallo --> La gallina
Rooster --> Hen

In other cases, the feminine word is completely different:

El hombre --> La mujer
The man --> The woman

El caballo --> La yegua
The horse --> The mare

El toro --> La vaca
The bull --> The cow

Endings for both genders

There are endings that are used for both genders. They are:

"-ista"
"-ante"

In these cases, we would determine the gender from its corresponding article.

el estilista --> la estilista
The stylist (male) --> The stylist (female)

Other cases

Animal names are usually only masculine or only femenine and used for both genders. The actual sex is determined by adding "macho" (male) or "hembra" (female) after the noun.

here some Masculine animals:

Masculine Noun	Meaning
el águila	the aegle
el cisne	the swan
el pájaro	the bird

And some feminine animals:

Feminine Animals	Meaning
la abeja	the bee
la araña	the spider
la ballena	the whale

Masculine examples:

el águila macho - el águila hembra
the male eagle, the female eagle

el gorila macho - el gorila hembra
the male gorilla – the female gorilla

Feminine examples:

la jirafa macho - la jirafa hembra
the male giraffe – the female giraffe

la tortuga macho - la tortuga hembra
the male turtle – the female turtle