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How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns?

By: Natalia Molina Ceballos Tue Aug 12 2025

Nouns

To know the gender of Spanish nouns, take a look at the noun ending or the gender of the article before it. It is important to identify the gender of Spanish nouns because the adjectives and other words accompanying them agree accordingly. Take, for example, the feminine noun casa(house). If we want to add an adjective to describe it, we need to make it feminine as well, like this: casa bonita(beautiful house). This post will review how to recognize the gender of animate and inanimate nouns and review misleading nouns’ gender, nouns that change meaning based on gender, and nouns referring to animals. Keep reading to learn more!

How do you recognize gender in Spanish nouns?

To recognize gender in Spanish nouns, examine the ending of the noun: most nouns ending in -o are masculine (hermano(brother); libro(book)), and those ending in -a are feminine (hermana(sister); taza(cup)). Although this is a good starting point, this is not always the case, you can also memorize the various ending patterns (listed below) for nouns referring to inanimate objects.

Gender of nouns referring to animate objects (physical gender)

To identify the gender of a noun in Spanish, take a look at its ending. The general rule says that nouns ending in -a are feminine and those ending in -o are masculine. Look at the examples below:

Masculine	Feminine
niño boy	niña girl

Sometimes the masculine noun referring to an animate object ends in a consonant, for example pintor(painter). In that case, make the noun feminine simply by adding an -a:

pintor → pintora
painter
japonés → japonésa
Japanese
campeón → campeóna
champion

Let’s take a look at other cases of the gender of nouns that refer to animate objects.

Nouns that remain the same and only change the article

Some nouns in Spanish are the same regardless of gender and only change the article. This means they have a singular form for both feminine and masculine, while only the article changes. Look at the following examples:

Masculine	Feminine	Translation
el artista	la artista	the artist
el piloto	la piloto	the pilot
el paciente	la paciente	the patient
el estudiante	la estudiante	the student
el intérprete	la intérprete	the interpreter

Nouns ending in '–e'

There are a few nouns that end in -e in their masculine form that refer to animate objects. For these cases, the feminine form is made by dropping the -e and adding an -a:

Masculine	Feminine	Translation
el hefe	la hefa	the boss
el sastre	la sastra	the tailor

Nouns that change slightly for feminine and masculine forms

For some nouns, masculine and feminine forms are somewhat different:

Masculine	Translation	Feminine	Translation
el rey	the king	la reina	the queen
el actor	the actor	la actriz	the actress
el alcade	the mayor	la alcadesa	the mayor

Gender of nouns referring to inanimate objects

For the gender of nouns referring to inanimate objects, such as things, places, ideas, etc, the rules are different. Here are some rules and endings that will help you identify their gender with ease.

Masculine nouns

Nouns ending in the consonants -n, -r, -s, -l, -x and -y are usually masculine* (scroll down to see exceptions in the “Misleading nouns” section).

Noun Ending	Example	Translation
-n	un / el corazón	a / the heart
-r	un / el amor	a / the love
-s	un / el bus	a / the bus
-l	un / el árbol	a / the tree
-x	un / el tórax	a / the thorax
-y	un / el buey	a / the ox

There are also some categories of nouns that are always masculine. These are: the days of the week, colors, numbers, languages, the names of rivers, oceans, mountains, volcanoes, and compound nouns formed with a verb. You’ll find some examples in the following table:

Category	Example (Spanish)	Example (translation)
Days of the week	el lunes	Monday
Colors	el azul	blue
Numbers	el diez	ten
Languages	el español	Spanish
Rivers, oceans, mountains, and volcanoes	el Amazonas el Atlántico el Aconcagua el Cotopaxi	The Amazon The Atlantic The Aconcagua The Cotopaxi
Compound nouns made from verbs	el sacacorchos	the corkscrew

Finally, there are some other noun endings that are typically an indication of masculine gender. These are: -aje, -ambre, -ate, -ete, -ote, and -miento. Take a look at the following examples:

Ending	Example (Spanish)	Example (translation)
-aje	el traje	the suit
-ambre	el hambre	the hunger
-ate	el escaparate	the wardrobe
-ete	el clarinete	the clarinet
-ote	el camarote	the bunk bed
-miento	el pimiento	the pepper

Feminine nouns

Nouns ending in -dad, -tad, -tud, -ión, -ez, -eza, -umbre, -is, -ia, -ie, and -ncia are usually feminine (scroll down to see exceptions in the “Misleading nouns” section).

Ending	Example	Translation
-dad	la solidaridad	the solidarity
-tad	la amistad	the friendship
-tud	la latitud	the latitude
-ión	la canción	the song
-ez	la timidez	the shyness
-eza	la belleza	the beauty
-umbre	la cumbre	the summit the summit
-is	la crisis	the crisis
-ia	la gracia	the grace
-ie	la superficie	the surface
-ncia	la emergencia	the emergency

Nouns ending in ‘-e’

Nouns ending in -e can be masculine or feminine. There is no trick to remembering these, so to know their gender, always take a look at the article before it. In its singular form, a feminine noun will be accompanied by the articles la(the) or una(a, an) and the masculine noun will go with the articles el(the) or un(a, an).

Masculine	Feminine
el restaurante the restaurant	la clase the class
el cine cinema	la noche the night

If you want to practice, we have created an exercise for you and a list with the most common Spanish nouns ending in -e.

What are misleading nouns?

Misleading nouns are nouns that refer to inanimate objects that may have the ending of a specific gender but are actually the opposite gender. These nouns are exceptions to the rules above. Look at some examples in the following table:

Masculine	Feminine
el clima weather, test	la catedral cathedral
el dia day	la foto picture, photo
el idioma language	la imagen image

Do you want to know more? We have created an exercise that you can use to learn more misleading Spanish nouns.

Nouns that change meaning based on their gender

Spanish has some nouns that change their meanings based on their gender (meaning when they are used with feminine or masculine articles).

Masculine	Feminine
el Papa the Pope	la papa the potato
el capital the investment	la capital the capital city

Check out our list of Spanish nouns that change their meaning based on their gender.

Nouns referring to animals

Nouns referring to animals can be tricky in Spanish. They may only be in the masculine or the feminine gender or may even have different words depending on the gender. Check out this list for a quick reference about the different cases and words for animals based on their gender.

Summary

It’s important to identify the gender of nouns in Spanish so that they can agree with the adjectives and other words used to accompany them. To do so, there are some rules we need to remember. Let’s see what we’ve learned:

Nouns that refer to animate objects will generally have two forms, masculine and feminine, which will be easily identifiable by their endings (-o or -a).
Nouns ending in consonants like -n, -r, -s, -l, -x, or -y are typically masculine.
Nouns ending in -d, -ión, -ez, or -is are typically feminine.
Nouns that end in -e and misleading nouns are hard to tell, so always look at the article in front of the word.

If you want to practice these two last cases, we have created this exercise for you. Finally, if you want an easy way to remember some of these endings, this acronym might be helpful.

Downloadable Resources

Elevate your language-learning journey to new heights with the following downloadable resources.

How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns~Meaning changing nouns table How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns~ Nouns Referring to Animals How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns~ Misleading Nouns ending in -e activities How do you know the gender of Spanish nouns~ Misleading Nouns activities

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