Read the sentence and identify the gender of the word “orphan”. Sentence: He…

Concept: English nouns are classified by gender based on what the word itself denotes, not on the specific person a sentence happens to describe. Masculine nouns denote only male beings (king, actor, uncle); Feminine nouns denote only female beings (queen, actress, aunt); Neuter nouns denote inanimate things or beings without natural sex (book, committee); and Common Gender nouns denote a person who may be either male or female, with one and the same word used for both (teacher, friend, parent, orphan).

Application: The noun “orphan” names a child who has lost both parents — this can be a boy or a girl, and English uses the same word “orphan” for both. In the given sentence, the pronoun “He” tells us that this particular orphan is male, but the question is asking about the gender class of the word “orphan” itself, not about the specific person in the sentence. Because the word does not fix the sex of its referent, it belongs to Common Gender.

Why the other options don't fit:

• Masculine Gender: reserved for words with a fixed male sense in every sentence (king, actor); “orphan” carries no such fixed sense — only this particular sentence’s referent happens to be male.

• Feminine Gender: reserved for words with a fixed female sense in every sentence (queen, actress); “orphan” carries no such fixed sense either.

• Neuter Gender: reserved for inanimate things or beings without natural sex (book, committee); “orphan” denotes a living person, so it doesn’t qualify.

Conclusion: Since “orphan” applies equally to a male or a female child, it is a Common Gender noun — the pronoun “He” only tells us about this particular orphan, not about the gender class of the word.