Question

Identify the feminine form of the following noun:
drake
(a)drakess
(b)she-drake
(c)duck
(d)drakenne

Answer 1

Hint: In gender assigning, in English, the inanimate objects are considered as neuter gender. The noun in the given question has an assigned gender in the English language, which has a feminine counterpart.

Complete answer:
Gender is defined as the classifying of a noun or pronoun is feminine in gender, masculine in gender, or neuter in gender. An example of gender is the word ‘man’ which is a masculine noun, and its feminine noun is ‘woman’. There are pre-assigned genders in English, meaning that it is not subject to change. They cannot be changed under any circumstances. However, there is a third gender in English called ‘neuter gender’ which is assigned to inanimate objects that do not possess gender or do not classify to be gendered.

Now, we know what gender refers to in English grammar. Let’s look at the given options
one by one:
(a)drakess - This word is grammatically incorrect. This word does not exist in the English language and therefore, is not the feminine form of the word ‘drake’. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
(b)she-drake - This word is grammatically incorrect. This word does not exist in the English language and therefore, is not the feminine form of the word ‘drake’. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
(c)duck - This word is grammatically correct. This word is the correct feminine form of the word ‘drake’. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.
(d)drakenne - This word is grammatically incorrect. This word does not exist in the English language and therefore, is not the feminine form of the word ‘drake’. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
Note: Try to look for pointers in the given sentence and try to understand the meaning of each word. Then, choose the word that is most likely to be a feminine noun out of the given options.