Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/415

 use of friend, teacher, servant, neighbour, either as masculine or feminine; in German, Gemahl spouse, also for fem. Gemahlin, &c.).

2. Of words denoting persons παῖς, according to the formerly common opinion, was in early times used as epicene (see, however, above, ). The use of the plural in  and  in the sense of young people (of both genders) does not, however, prove this. In this and in similar cases (cf. e.g.  and  32:1) the masculine as prior gender includes the feminine.

3. The following classes of ideas are usually regarded as feminine, although the substantives which express them are mostly without the feminine ending:

(a) Names of countries and towns, since they are regarded as the mothers and nurses of the inhabitants; e.g., , ; cf. also such expressions as, , &c. On the other hand appellatives which are originally masculine, remain so when used as place-names, e.g., , &c.

Rem. The same proper nouns, which as names of countries are regarded as feminine, are frequently used also as names of the people, and may then, like national names in other languages, be construed as masculine (the national name almost always being used also as the personal name of the supposed ancestor of the people); thus masc., &c., Judaei; but