Question

Identify the ‘masculine gender noun’ from the given sentence:
The committee proclaimed a ban on the widower from entering the church, due to his evil ways.
a) church
b) widower
c) committee
d) None of these

Answer 1

Hint: In gender assigning, in English, the inanimate objects are considered as neuter gender. There is a possessive in the above sentence, which points to the masculine noun.

Complete answer:
Gender is defined as a classification of a noun or pronoun is feminine, masculine, or neuter. An example of gender is the word ‘host’ which is a masculine noun, and its feminine noun is ‘hostess’.
There are pre-assigned genders in English. 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.

Now, we know what gender refers to in English grammar. Let’s look at the given options one by one:

a) church - The word ‘church’ is used to describe a place of worship for Christians. It is a building, and therefore, it is an inanimate object. So, it is neuter gender, and not masculine. So, this is an incorrect option.
b) widower - The word ‘widower’ refers to a man whose wife is dead. It is used to describe only males. Therefore, it is a masculine noun. So, the correct answer is “Option b”.
c) committee - The word ‘committee’ is used to describe a team of people. It does not refer to a single person, it is an inanimate object. So, it is neuter gender, and not masculine. So, this is also an incorrect option.
d) None of these - This is an incorrect option as we already know the correct option, as we have seen before.

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 masculine noun out of the given options.