Gender divides existing reality into three groups: a group of male, a group of female and a group of neither male nor female persons or things. We speak of male (mnl.), female (vrl.) and neuter (onz.) gender. This linguistic classification corresponds to our biological view in many cases, but often not. In this respect, there is little difference between Greek and Dutch. The Dutch word "woman," for example, like the corresponding Greek word, is feminine, but the word "female," again like the corresponding Greek word, is neuter, even though the female indicated by that word is still female in the biological sense.

In Dutch, neuter words can be recognized by the fact that one can put the article "it" in front of them (e.g.: the house); to know whether a word is masculine or feminine, most Dutch nowadays have to consult the dictionary.

When a word form indicates a particular gender, the abbreviation of that gender (m, v or o for masculine, feminine and neuter, respectively) is added in parentheses to the translation of the word form -except in the case of nouns, because there this fact is already mentioned in the description of the word meaning, e.g., under word 3970 sapros 'rotten, spoiled':
.1 sapros rot (1 ev m)

See further at grammar.