How does Modern Greek show grammatical gender?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

In Modern Greek, the ancient categorization of nouns into masculine, feminine, and neuter genders remains intact.1

Grammatical gender is shown through a system of agreement, or concord, where related words must match the noun they modify in gender, number, and case. Specifically:12

  • Adjectives: These must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case.1
  • Articles: Definite articles (such as o) and indefinite articles (such as enas) also reflect the gender of the noun.1
  • Pronouns: In general, pronouns exhibit the same gender categories as nouns.1

This system ensures that when a noun is used in a sentence, the associated adjectives, articles, and pronouns are inflected to match its specific gender class.12