degender
degender verb: to degenerate.
Verb (1)
degender (third-person singular simple present degenders, present participle degendering, simple past and past participle degendered)
- To degenerate.
- And if then thoſe may any vvorſe be red, / They into that ere long will be degendered.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Prologue”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 184
Verb (2)
degender (third-person singular simple present degenders, present participle degendering, simple past and past participle degendered)
- To strip of gender; to make genderless or gender-neutral.
- It follows that a degendering strategy, an attempt to dismantle hegemonic masculinity, is unavoidable[…]2005, R. W. Connell, Masculinities, page 232
- To refer to (someone) with terms that avoid mentioning their gender, such as calling a woman "they" or using "my partner" to refer to one's girlfriend.
Forms of degender
| third-person singular present | degenders |
|---|---|
| present participle | degendering |
| past participle | degendered |
| past | degendered |
| alternative form | degener |
| alternative form | ungender |
Origin of degender
From Latin dēgenerāre.
From de- + gender.
Questions about degender
- What does degender mean?
- Degender means to degenerate.
- What part of speech is degender?
- Degender is a verb.
- What is the past tense of degender?
- The past tense of degender is degendered.
Words near degender in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: degender (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “degender.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/degender. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.