use of friend, teacher, servant, neighbour, either as masculine or feminine; in German, Gemahl[1] spouse, also for fem. Gemahlin, &c.).
[g] 2. Of words denoting persons נַ֫עַר παῖς, according to the formerly common opinion, was in early times used as epicene (see, however, above, § 2 n). The use of the plural נְעָרִים in Jb 1 and Ru 2 in the sense of young people (of both genders) does not, however, prove this. In this and in similar cases (cf. e.g. אֹתָם Gn 1 and אֶתְהֶם 32:1) the masculine as prior gender includes the feminine.[2]
[h] 3. The following classes of ideas are usually regarded as feminine,[3] although the substantives which express them are mostly without the feminine ending:[4]
(a) Names of countries and towns, since they are regarded as the mothers[5] and nurses of the inhabitants; e.g. אַשּׁוּר Assyria, אֱדֹם Idumaea, צֹר Tyre; cf. also such expressions as בַּת בָּבֶל, בַּת צִיּוֹן daughter of Babylon, daughter of Zion, &c. On the other hand appellatives which are originally masculine, remain so when used as place-names, e.g. Am 5 בֵּית־אֵל, הַגִּלְגָּל, &c.
[i] Rem. The same proper nouns, which as names of countries are regarded as feminine, are frequently used also as names of the people, and may then, like national names in other languages, be construed as masculine (the national name almost always being used also as the personal name of the supposed ancestor of the people); thus יְהוּדָה masc. Is 3, &c., Judaei; but
- ↑ So in early Arabic, ba‛l (lord) and zauǵ (conjux) are used both for maritus and uxor; ‛arūs for bridegroom and bride; the later language, however, distinguishes the feminine from the masculine in all these cases generally by the ending a (at). In early Arabic also the feminine ending is commonly omitted in such participles as ḥāmil, bāṭin (gravida), and the like, which from the nature of the case can only be used of females. Thus also אֹמֵן, at least in Nu 11 (Is 49?), probably means nurse (for אֹמֶ֫נֶת 2 S 4, &c.), not nursing-father.
- ↑ The Arab grammarians call this use of the masculine plural and dual (e.g. el-abawāni, the two fathers, i.e. parentes) taghlîb or the making (the masculine) prevail (over the feminine).—Cf. M. Grünert, Die Begriffs-Präponderanz und die Duale a potiori im Altarab., Vienna, 1886.
- ↑ The masculine gender is attributed ‘by the Hebrews and the Semites generally to whatever is dangerous, savage, courageous, respected, great, strong, powerful ...; the feminine to whatever is motherly, productive, sustaining, nourishing, gentle, weak, ... subject, &c.’ (Albrecht, ZAW. 1896, p. 120 f.).
- ↑ When, on the other hand, words with a feminine-ending, such as קֶ֫שֶׁת a bow (stem קוש), עֵת time (see the Lexicon), are sometimes construed as masculine, this is owing probably in some cases to a misunderstanding of the formation of the word, the ת of the feminine being regarded as a radical.
- ↑ Cf. a city and a mother (אֵם) in Israel, 2 S 20. In the same way אֵם (like μήτηρ, mater) on Phoenician coins stands for mother-city, μητ ρόπολις. The same figure is used in such expressions as sons of Zion, ψ 149; sons of Babylon, Ez 23, &c., as also in speaking of the suburbs of a city as its daughters, e.g. Jos 15 ff., &c.—The comparison of Jerusalem to a woman is especially frequent in allegorical descriptions, e.g. Ez 16, La 1, &c.
