Gender Etymology
Etymology is the study of the origin of words, their relationships and ways in which their meanings have changed through history.
Origin and meaning of "gender"[1]
gender (noun)
c. 1300, "kind, sort, class, a class or kind of persons or things sharing certain traits," from Old French gendre, genre "kind, species; character; gender" (12c., Modern French genre), from stem of Latin genus (genitive generis) "race, stock, family; kind, rank, order; species," also "(male or female) sex," from PIE root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.
The unetymological -d- is a phonetic accretion in Old French. Also used in Latin to translate Aristotle's Greek grammatical term genos. The grammatical sense is attested in English from late 14c. Jespersen ("Philosophy of Grammar," 1924) defines grammatical gender by reference to the Indo-European distinction of masculine, feminine, neuter, "whether the division be based on the natural division into two sexes, or on that between animate and inanimate, or on something else."
The "male-or-female sex" sense of the word is attested in English from early 15c. As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous.
gender (verb)
"to bring forth," late 14c., from Old French gendrer, genrer "engender, beget, give birth to," from Latin generare "to engender, beget, produce" (see generation). Related: Gendered; gendering. also from late 14c.
Gender comes from the root "gene":
*gene- *genə-, also *gen-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.
Definition from Websters 1828 Dictionary[2]
GEN'DER, noun [Latin genus, from geno, gigno; Gr.to beget, or to be born; Eng. kind. Gr. a woman, a wife; Sans. gena, a wife, and genaga, a father. We have begin from the same root. See Begin and Can.]
1. Properly, kind; sort.
2. A sex, male or female. Hence,
3. In grammar, a difference in words to express distinction of sex; usually a difference of termination in nouns, adjectives and participles, to express the distinction of male and female. But although this was the original design of different terminations, yet in the progress of language, other words having no relation to one sex or the other, came to have genders assigned them by custom. Words expressing males are said to be of the masculine gender; those expressing females, of the feminine gender; and in some languages, words expressing things having no sex, are of the neuter or neither gender
GEN'DER, verb transitive To beget; but engender is more generally used.
GEN'DER, verb intransitive To copulate; to breed. Leviticus 19:19.
Summary
01 The word “gender” comes from the root “gene” which means to give birth, beget, bring forth, produce and from it comes the word “generate”. The word is rooted in the notion of procreation and whatever is derived from that (family, race, tribe, stock). It was used to refer to male or female sex from the 15th century.
02 Giving birth is an act of a woman who is born with the female organ and a womb and who undergoes monthly menstruation (signifying release of ova that can be fertilized). The woman is “impregnated” by a man who is born with the male organ. The “produce” brought forth, what is given birth to, which is only ever a male (with XY chromosomes) or female (with XX chromosomes).[3]
03 As for “sex” it comes from the Latin sexus "a sex, state of being either male or female”, or “secus”, where “sec” refers to a division, separation (as in “section”, “seclude” etc.). Hence, there is a male sex and the female sex.
04 As the word “sex” took on erotic qualities in the 20th century, “gender” was used to refer to the biological sex of a human being, and was identical in meaning to the word “sex” (male or female). That is until the second half of the 20th century after the appearance of sexual liberation philosophies when gender began to be separated from anatomical/biological sex and turned into an “identity”.
See: The Two Biological Sexes and the Invention of Gender Identity
Footnotes
1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/gender2. https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/gender
3. Except in rare circumstances where the sexual organs are not formed properly and are not distinguished. Such people are known as “intersex” and this is not a separate category of sex or gender in itself, as this is an anomaly.