How to determine the gender of the plural nouns

A noun is an independent part of speech that denotes an object and answers the question of who / what. The category of the gender of nouns in the Russian language has a number of features, the knowledge of which allows avoiding errors in the endings of adjectives, numerals, participles and pronouns, consistent with nouns.

Instruction manual

one

Gender can be determined only in those nouns that have the form of a singular. Therefore, in order to determine the gender, put the word in the nominative case of the singular. The characteristic end of the masculine gender in this form will be zero (closet, light, bear), or PO (dad, uncle), female - PO (spring, girlfriend, snail), or zero (mouse, prank), medium - o / e (summer, echo, milk).

2

Please note that nouns ending in a soft sign can refer to both the feminine gender (third conjugation nouns) and masculine. For example, rye is feminine, and vocabulary is masculine.

3

In the Russian language there are a number of nouns that do not have the singular form: scissors, pants, watches, shorts. Most of these nouns indicate objects that consist of two parts, so their gender is called paired.

4

Nouns, borrowed from other languages, outwardly resembling nouns of the middle gender, as a rule, belong to the middle gender and include: a new coat, fragrant cocoa. There are many exceptions in this rule based on the principle of various analogies (since the ruble, dollar and franc are masculine, then the euro is masculine).

5

There is a group of words in Russian that has meanings of both masculine and feminine gender (for example, the word "sleepyhead"). The gender of such nouns is determined based on context. Many professions belong to the same rule: deputy, doctor. In this case, the non-segregated definition remains masculine (a young surgeon Ivanova appeared in the hospital), and the segregated definition, standing after the proper name, has the form of a feminine gender (the young surgeon Ivanova, who is very promising, successfully operated on the patient).