neuter

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See also: Neuter

English

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Alternative forms

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  • n., n, ntr (abbreviation, grammar)

Etymology

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Inherited from Middle English neutre, from Latin neuter, from ne (“not”) +‎ uter (“whether”), a semantic loan from Koine Greek οὐδέτερος (oudéteros); compare English whether and neither.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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neuter (not generally comparable, comparative more neuter, superlative most neuter)

  1. (now uncommon) Neutral; on neither side; neither one thing nor another.
    Synonyms: impartial, neutral
    • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene 3]:
      But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
      I would attach you all and make you stoop
      Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;
      But since I cannot, be it known to you
      I do remain as neuter.
    • 1672, Robert South, “A Sermon Preach’d at Westminster-Abbey, on the Twenty Ninth of May, 1672. Being the Anniversary Festival appointed by Act of Parliament, for the Happy Restoration of King Charles II”, in Twelve Sermons and Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions‎[1], 6th edition, volume 5, London: Jonah Bowyer, published 1727, page 271:
      This is certain, that in all our Undertakings God will be either our Friend or our Enemy. For Providence never stands neuter […]
    • 1724, Charles Johnson [pseudonym], “Of Captain Avery, and His Crew”, in A General History of the Pyrates, […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for, and sold by T. Warner, […], →OCLC, pages 59-60:
      [A]s their firſt Security, they did all they could to foment War betwixt the neighbouring Negroes, remaining Neuter themselves, by which Means, thoſe who were overcome conſtantly fled to them for Protection, otherwiſe they must be either killed or made Slaves.
    • 1973, Nancy Frazier, Myra Sadker, Sexism in school and society:
      A relay race that does not match teams but integrates the fastest and the slowest in one race against the most neuter of all adversaries — time.
  2. (grammar) Having a form which is not masculine nor feminine; or having a form which is not of common gender.
    a neuter noun
    the neuter definite article
    a neuter termination
    the neuter gender
    • 1982 April 10, Maida Tilchen, “June Arnold Dies of Cancer”, in Gay Community News, page 3:
      In The Cook and the Carpenter, Arnold used the device of a neuter pronoun "na," instead of assigning gender to the characters.
  3. (grammar) Intransitive.
    Synonym: intransitive
    a neuter verb
  4. (biology) Sexless: having no or imperfectly developed sex organs.
  5. (literary) Sexless, nonsexual.
    • 2000, Jan Hutson, The Chicken Ranch: The True Story of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, →ISBN, page 30:
      Rich girls stayed home and got married and then "put out" occasionally, but only as their wifely duty. Prior to the sexual revolution in the 1960s southern belles were the most neuter members of the human race[.]
  6. (of an animal) Castrated; having had the reproductive organs removed.

Synonyms

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Coordinate terms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

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neuter (plural neuters)

  1. (biology) An organism, either vegetable or animal, which at its maturity has no generative organs, or but imperfectly developed ones, as a plant without stamens or pistils, as the garden Hydrangea; especially, one of the imperfectly developed females of certain social insects, as of the ant and the common honeybee, which perform the labors of the community, and are called workers.
  2. A person who takes no part in a contest; someone remaining neutral.
    • 1571, Arthur Golding, “Epistle Dedicatorie”, in The Psalmes of David and others. With M. John Calvins Commentaries‎[2]:
      But if you should beecome eyther a counterfayt Protestant, or a perverse Papist, or a colde and carelesse newter (which God forbid) the harme could not be expressed which you should do to your native Cuntrie.
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section 2, member 4, subsection iv:
      Friends, neuters, enemies, all are as one, to make a fool a madman is their sport […].
  3. (grammar) The neuter gender.
  4. (grammar) A noun of the neuter gender; any one of those words which have the terminations usually found in neuter words.
  5. (grammar) An intransitive verb or state-of-being verb.
    • 1820, M. Santagnello, A Dictionary of the Peculiarities of the Italian Language, G. and W. B. Whittaker, page 185:
      Make one do, or act (to), fare fare, fare agire, with an accusative when the verb is a neuter, and with a dative when otherwise.
    • 1847, Brian Houghton Hodgson, Essay the First; On the Kocch, Bódo and Dhimál Tribes, in Three Parts, J. Thomas, page 119:
      Compound verbs other than those already spoken of whereby neuters are made active, are very rare, as I have already hinted under the head of nouns.
    • 1971, Harry Hoijer, “Athapaskan Morphology”, in Jesse O. Sawyer, editor, Studies in American Indian Languages, University of California Press, published 1973, →ISBN, page 130:
      In all the Apachean languages, verbs are divided into two major categories, neuters and actives, each of which may be further divided into intransitives, transitives, and passives.

Quotations

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Coordinate terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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neuter (third-person singular simple present neuters, present participle neutering, simple past and past participle neutered)

  1. (transitive) To remove sex organs from an animal to prevent it from having offspring; to castrate or spay, particularly as applied to domestic animals.
  2. (transitive) To rid of sexuality.
    • 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The Onion AV Club‎[3]:
      The neutering extends to Believe’s guest stars, with warm-and-fuzzy verses from Ludacris (“I love everything about you / You’re imperfectly perfect”), Big Sean (“I don’t know if this makes sense, but you’re my hallelujah”), Nicki Minaj (who at least squeaks a “bitches” into her verse), and especially Drake, whose desire to hug and kiss the object of his affection on “Right Here” is reminiscent of The Red Hot Chili Peppers on Krusty’s Comeback Special.
  3. (transitive) To drastically reduce the effectiveness of something.
    Congress neutered the bill by adding an exception for big corporations.
    • 1974, John Boorman, Zardoz, London: Pan Books, page 51:
      Here wrangling, bitty conflicts neutered change.
    • 2024 July 14, Chris Hedges, “My Thoughts On the Attempted Trump Assassination”, in The Chris Hedges Report‎[4]:
      This collusion with the forces of corporate oppression neuters the press, Trump's critics and the Democratic Party.
  4. (transitive) To make grammatically neuter.
    • 1983 December 3, Warren Blumenfeld, “Am Tikva”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 20, page 7:
      At their religious services Am Tikva makes all attempts to de-genderize the liturgy by neutering English nouns and pronouns and, when Hebrew is used, by using both masculine and the feminine forms of the language.

Synonyms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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Latin

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From ne (“not”) +‎ uter (“either”). In the grammatical sense, a semantic loan from Koine Greek οὐδέτερος (oudéteros), from οὐδέ (oudé, “not”) +‎ ἕτερος (héteros, “one or the other (of two)”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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neuter (feminine neutra, neuter neutrum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er, pronominal)

  1. neither, neither one
  2. (grammar) neuter (gender)
  3. (grammar) neuter, intransitive (of a verb)

Usage notes

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  • In the grammatical senses, the declension of this adjective is not pronominal, but attributive (regular). Thus for the sense of the grammatical category of "neuter gender", the genitive is neutrī (generis), and the dative is neutrō (generī).

Declension

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First/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er, pronominal).

singular plural
masculine feminine neuter masculine feminine neuter
nominative neuter neutra neutrum neutrī neutrae neutra
genitive neutrī̆us neutrōrum neutrārum neutrōrum
dative neutrī neutrīs
accusative neutrum neutram neutrum neutrōs neutrās neutra
ablative neutrō neutrā neutrō neutrīs
vocative neuter neutra neutrum neutrī neutrae neutra

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Catalan: neutre
  • → French: neutre
  • → Friulian: neutri
  • → Galician: neutro
  • → Italian: neutro
  • → Occitan: neutre
  • → Portuguese: neutro
  • → Piedmontese: nèutr
  • → Romanian: neutru
  • → Spanish: neutro

References

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  • “neuter”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “neuter”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • neuter in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎[5], London: Macmillan and Co.
    • this word is neuter: hoc vocabulum generis neutri (not neutrius) est)
    • to be neutral: nullius or neutrius (of two) partis esse
    • to be neutral: in neutris partibus esse
    • to be neutral: neutram partem sequi
  1. ^ Allen, S. (1965). Vox Latina, p. 63:

    eu is confined to the forms neu, ceu, seu, the interjections heu and heus, and Greek proper names and borrowings such as Orpheus, Europa, euge, eunuchus. [...] The sound may be produced by combining a short e with an u; what must certainly be avoided is the pronunciation [yū] as in the English neuter1 [...].
    Latin neuter is normally trisyllabic, i.e. nĕŭter.
  2. ^ This word is used 11 times by Horace, Ovid, Statius and Lucan together, and never appears with neu- holding ictus; as such, it can always be scanned nĕ.ŭ- (e.g. ut nĕ.ŭ|ter Tā|lis..., Luc. 2.63) and provides no evidence for a diphthongal pronunciation /ne͡u̯.ter/ in these poets. Not used by Vergil or Catullus. An instance of the word in Seneca the Younger's Apocolocyntosis (§12) clearly treats nĕ- as a separate short vowel: saepĕ nĕ|ut.rā || quis nunc | iū.dex; similarly at Anthologia Latina 786, 3. The ictus, and hence the diphthong, is first attested in Terentianus Maurus, and in Late Latin poets becomes usual.
  3. ^ Nevertheless, it's still regularly trisyllabic for Consentius writing in the 5th century Gaul: item si dicat aliquis 'neutrum' disyllabum, quod trisyllabum fere enuntiamus, barbarismum faciet "likewise, if someone says 'neutrum' as a two-syllable when it's normally pronounced as a trisyllable, this will be a foreigner's mispronunciation."
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