Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or designating the sex that has organs to produce spermatozoa for fertilizing ova.
  • adjective Characteristic of or appropriate to this sex in humans and other animals.
  • adjective Consisting of members of this sex.
  • adjective Of or denoting the gamete that is smaller and more motile than the other corresponding gamete. Used of anisogamous organisms.
  • adjective Relating to or designating organs, such as anthers or antheridia, that produce gametes capable of fertilizing those produced by female organs.
  • adjective Bearing stamens but not pistils; staminate.
  • adjective Designating an object, such as an electric plug, designed for insertion into another part or a socket.
  • noun A male organism.
  • noun A man or boy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete form of mail.
  • Bad; evil; wicked
  • Pertaining to the sex of human kind, and by extension to that of animals in general, that begets young, as distinguished from the female, which conceives and gives birth: as, a male child; a male beast, fish, or fowl.
  • In botany, staminate: said of organs or flowers.
  • Pertaining to or characteristic of males of the human kind, or men as opposed to women; appropriate to men; masculine: as, male attire; a male voice.
  • Composed of males; made up of men and boys: as, a male choir.
  • Possessing some quality or attribute considered as characteristic of males.
  • Generative; fruitful, as an idea. In this sense, Bacon entitles one of his treatises the “Male Birth of Time.”
  • noun One of the sex of human kind that begets young; a man or boy; by extension, and usually, one of the sex of any animal that begets young: opposed to female.
  • noun In plants characterized by sexual differences and reproduced by sexual generation, that individual of which the special function is to form the substance essential to the fertility of the germ developed by the female.
  • noun An apple.
  • noun The dandelion.
  • noun The knot, a sandpiper, Tringa canutus.
  • noun See mal-.
  • noun A ‘male’ precious stone. In the middle ages and until quite recent times, all the darker gems, such as sapphire, ruby, and topaz, were known as ‘male’ gems; the lighter blue, lighter red, or lighter yellow were called ‘female’ gems.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Same as mail, a bag.
  • adjective obsolete Evil; wicked; bad.
  • noun An animal of the male sex.
  • noun (Bot.) A plant bearing only staminate flowers.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the sex that begets or procreates young, or (in a wider sense) to the sex that produces spermatozoa, by which the ova are fertilized; not female.
  • adjective (Bot.) Capable of producing fertilization, but not of bearing fruit; -- said of stamens and antheridia, and of the plants, or parts of plants, which bear them.
  • adjective Suitable to the male sex; characteristic or suggestive of a male; masculine.
  • adjective Consisting of males.
  • adjective (Mech.) Adapted for entering another corresponding piece (the female piece) which is hollow and which it fits
  • adjective (Bot.) a fern of the genus Aspidium (Aspidium Filixmas), used in medicine as an anthelmintic, esp. against the tapeworm. Aspidium marginale in America, and Aspidium athamanticum in South Africa, are used as good substitutes for the male fern in medical practice. See Female fern, under Female.
  • adjective a rhyme in which only the last syllables agree, as laid, afraid, dismayed. See Female rhyme, under Female.
  • adjective (Mech.) a screw having threads upon its exterior which enter the grooves upon the inside of a corresponding nut or female screw.
  • adjective the thread of a male screw.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Someone of male (masculine) gender:

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the capital of Maldives in the center of the islands
  • adjective being the sex (of plant or animal) that produces gametes (spermatozoa) that perform the fertilizing function in generation
  • noun a person who belongs to the sex that cannot have babies
  • adjective for or pertaining to or composed of men or boys
  • noun an animal that produces gametes (spermatozoa) that can fertilize female gametes (ova)
  • adjective characteristic of a man

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin masculus, diminutive of mās, male.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English male, borrowed from Old French masle, malle (Modern French mâle), from Latin masculus ("masculine, a male"), diminutive of mās ("male, masculine").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word male.

Examples

  • I define “male” and “female” in such a way as to include transpeople, which means that some of the _male_ people I know can indeed get pregnant.

    Lady Madonna, baby at your breast… 2005

  • The Fifteenth Amendment does not specifically exclude right of male citizens to vote, because they are _male_ citizens, therefore, male citizens are of necessity included in the right of voting.

    An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting Anonymous

  • It was then she come out delirious about not being the pampered toy of any male -- _male_, mind you!

    Somewhere in Red Gap Harry Leon Wilson 1903

  • _The prosperity of the States depends upon the protection afforded to our male citizens_; and the name and character of _male_ citizens of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carry with them unchallenged security and respect.

    History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) Matilda Joslyn Gage 1862

  • Especially as I read romance that is 50\% male POV or more … and almost always identify with the * male* character, not the heroine.

    Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary 2008

  • Especially as I read romance that is 50\% male POV or more … and almost always identify with the * male* character, not the heroine.

    Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary 2008

  • In 1865 the legislature discriminated against women by the passage of a very long act, prescribing the manner in which enumerations of _white male citizens_ shall be made; thus implying that a _white male citizen_ is an honorable and important person, whose existence is to be noted with due care; with a care that distinguishes him equally above the _white female_ and the _black male_ citizen, and in effect places these two unenumerated divisions of human beings into one class.

    History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) Matilda Joslyn Gage 1862

  • hiya i have brought 6 new pups YAY!! they are a male german shepard, a k. charles female and a shetland male+ a male husky, a jack russell female and a beagle. they are all very hyper cute and very very playful lol

    Yahoo! Answers: Latest Questions 2009

  • The term is everywhere in recent weeks, rather like the way the phrase "male chauvinism" emerged decades ago in the United States.

    NYT > Home Page By ETHAN BRONNER 2012

  • The term is everywhere in recent weeks, rather like the way the phrase "male chauvinism" emerged decades ago in the United States.

    NYT > Global Home By ETHAN BRONNER 2012

  • First coined by far-right activist and writer Theodore Robert Beale on a fringe nationalist blog in 2010, the sigma male describes an introverted alpha male who likes to “play by his own rules”.

    Rise and grind: how ‘sigma males’ are upturning the internet Dazed 2022

  • Birds’ Eye View has been working with the doyenne of feminist cinema, Prof Laura Mulvey of Birkbeck University, famed for creating the term “the male gaze”.

    'It's a mistresspiece!': the 14-hour film about forgotten female directors Kate Muir 2020

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • male, masle masculus

    June 13, 2007

  • male, masle masculus

    June 13, 2007

  • man , not woman

    June 13, 2007

  • NPR just told me male is a taboo word. So hard to keep up. . .

    September 4, 2015