What is meant by feminine of a word?

Answer 1

In French, as in most languages spoken today, all nouns have a grammatical gender. French has only two--masculine and feminine. People nouns take the gender you would expect; frère (brother) is masculine and sœur (sister) is feminine, for example. But most nouns are just one gender or the other for no particular reason; chaise (chair) is feminine but bureau (desk) is masculine, for example.

The gender of a noun affects all adjectives (including articles like "the") and pronouns that refer to that noun in a sentence. For example:

I'm eating a grapefruit. It's delicious. -- Je mange un pamplemousse. Il est délicieux.

I'm eating a pear. It's delicious. -- Je mange une poire. Elle est délicieuse.

In French, "grapefruit" is masculine and "pear" is feminine. Therefore the translations for a, it, and delicious are all different. Since those words refer to the fruit, they have to agree with it in gender.

So you can see that all French adjectives and pronouns have two forms--a masculine form and a feminine form. You might say, "The feminine of délicieux is délicieuse." I hope that answers your question!

Answer 2

The feminine form of a word typically refers to a grammatical gender category used to denote female nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in certain languages like Spanish or French. In English, gender distinctions are less common, but some nouns have specific feminine forms (e.g. actor/actress, lion/lioness).