# Total Different Base Words To Represent A Male -vs- Female **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 23, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666 "2009-11-23T18:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/41 "2009-11-29T06:05:06Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > No, midwife is actually gender neutral the “wife” part refers to the woman giving birth. In Old English mid=with and wif=woman so “midwife” actually means “with woman”. Your translation is correct, but I don’t know that actual Old English speakers would have considered it a gender-neutral term. There are a couple of other surviving English occupation words that end with “-wife”, “alewife” and “fishwife”, and in both cases the “-wife” bit refers to the sex of the person being described. So I would guess that the term “midwife” would be understood by Old English speakers to apply only to a woman…especially since this job was typically performed by women anyway. I suppose they could have specified a female midwife by calling her a “midwifewife”, but that seems rather silly. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/42 "2009-11-29T07:45:05Z")
bachelor/spinster? (or does the existence of “bachelorette” disqualify this pair?) ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/43 "2009-11-29T08:30:51Z")
Lawyer / prostitute ---
**Author:** ![kdeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b487fb/32.png) [@kdeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kdeus)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/44 "2009-11-29T14:02:55Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Lawyer / prostitute Actually, when a member of the other gender sells their virtue for an hourly rate, she is also called a lawyer. 😉 But hooker/ gigolo seems to fit the bill. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/45 "2009-11-29T16:11:25Z")
Regional one from the North East of the UK Mort = woman Gadje = man ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/46 "2009-11-29T16:47:17Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Lawyer / prostitute > [@kdeus](#): > > Actually, when a member of the other gender sells their virtue for an hourly rate, she is also called a lawyer. 😉 > > But hooker/ gigolo seems to fit the bill. Neither “prostitute” nor “hooker” are gender specific, it’s just that this particular occupation is predominantly female. A man can be a hooker or prostitute. A “gigolo” is always a man, but is not exactly the same thing as a prostitute. He may be a “kept man”, a paid escort, or a paid dancing partner. The term indicates that the man is being paid for his companionship, but not necessarily in a sense that would legally be considered prostitution. Sex may not even be involved. The word could refer to the male equivalent of a mistress or call girl, or he could be a male taxi-dancer. The OED tells me that “gigolo” is of French origin and was formed as a counterpart to the feminine “gigole” (“woman of the streets or public dance-halls”), so in French these are masculine and feminine terms based on the same root. ---
**Author:** ![kdeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b487fb/32.png) [@kdeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kdeus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/47 "2009-11-30T03:40:24Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > The OED tells me that “gigolo” is of French origin and was formed as a counterpart to the feminine “gigole” (“woman of the streets or public dance-halls”), so in French these are masculine and feminine terms based on the same root. But we don’t say “Gigoles” for women of the streets, we use a different word. We call them hookers. ---
**Author:** ![Stentor\_2.5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/48 "2009-11-30T04:25:51Z")
Ballerina/dancer ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/49 "2009-11-30T05:47:20Z")
> [@kdeus](#): > > But we don’t say “Gigoles” for women of the streets, we use a different word. We call them hookers. A man doing the same job can also be called a hooker or prostitute. The vast majority of hookers are in fact women, but the word itself is not gender-specific. “[Gigolo](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gigolo)” _is_ gender specific, but as I already explained it does not simply mean “male prostitute”. Gigolo/mistress, as suggested by **shijinn** , works better, although “mistress” doesn’t match up with the second definition of “gigolo”. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/50 "2009-11-30T08:25:46Z")
Male/Female - These words actually come from different roots. _Female_ isn’t a version of _male_. > **[Female | Etymology and usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female#Etymology_and_usage)** > > The word female comes from the Latin femella, the diminutive form of femina, meaning "woman", by way of the Old French femelle. It is not etymologically related to the word male, but in the late 14th century the English spelling was altered to parallel that of male. It has been used as both noun and adjective since the 14th century. Originally, from its first appearance in the 1300s, female exclusively referred to humans and always indicated that the speaker spoke of a woman or a gi For several... > [@](#): > > The word **female** comes from the Latin _femella_, the diminutive form of _femina_, meaning “[woman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman),” which is not actually related to the word “male.” In the late 14th century, the English spelling was altered so that the word paralleled the spelling of “male.” ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/51 "2009-11-30T09:04:31Z")
> [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](#): > > They’re not really identical occupations either. A warlock is closer equivalent to witch. /pedantry. That’s actually a common misconception. Both witch and warlock are gender neutral terms. Witch became associated with women when some nutjob/opportunist in the 15th century [[wrote a certain book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum) and warlock only picked up the definition of “a male witch” relativly recently, with its actual meaning being “someone who breaks an oath”. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666/52 "2009-11-30T09:16:34Z")
Husband/Wife [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-different-base-words-to-represent-a-male-vs-female/518666.md?page=2)