OK, so if you’re a new learner, you’ve probably come across a few explanations of how gender works in Portuguese, and how to work out if a given word is masculine or feminine just by looking at it. Different teachers have slightly different rules so I sat down to road-test them and see which versions were reliable and which had so many exceptions that they weren’t worth bothering with. I used a list of the 1000 most popular portuguese nouns (details in Appendix 3 below) and used excel formulae to see what rule *should* apply vs what gender it actually has.
This third version of the list has some new refinements for nouns ending in -ão. As you know they are very variable. I usually hear abstract nouns are feminine and concrete nouns are masculine but that’s a bit vague and there are lots of exceptions. But then I came across a video where some guy (I wish I could remember who so I could credit him!) said the thing to do is to look at the letter immediately before the -ão. Verbs ending -ção, -são and to a lesser extent -ião are the ones that are treated as abstract and feminine. They tend to be similar to english words ending -tion or -sion. The rest are manly and butch. Once you split the rule like this, it makes more sense and there are very few exceptions. So… I’ve updated the table below
Portuguese Noun Genders – All The Rules I Know
More specific rules nearer the top override more general ones further down. So for example, “dezena” is masculine because it meets the “all numbers are masculine” rule even though it ends in A. And Avó is feminine because it meets the “Male and Female people” rule even though it ends in an O. Sorry about the colour-scheme, but… well, you know… just trying to harness my cultural stereotypes in a way that makes it easier to follow.
| Rule | Examples | Exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| Dependent: Male and Female animals/people depend on individual’s sex* |
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| Dependent: Ordinal numbers depend what’s being counted, because they are effectively adjectives! |
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| Masculine: Nouns ending in -o (but not -ão though) -r -l -z -u |
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| Masculine: Names of Lakes, Rivers, Mountains etc |
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| Masculine: Compass points |
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| Masculine: Car brands** & types of wines |
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| Variable: The seasons obey their last letter rules o=masculine, a=feminine |
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| Variable: Week days obey their last letter rules o=masculine, a=feminine |
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| Masculine: Words from greek, usually ending -a: most usually in -ema -grama -eta |
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“Gorjeta” is the only word with these endings that doesn’t match but Priberam says it’s not greek |
| Masculine: Letters |
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| Masculine: Cardinal numbers |
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| Feminine: Words ending in -ção -são -ião |
a acção a actuação a administração a alteração a aplicação a aprovação a associação a atenção a avaliação a canção a classificação a colecção a comissão a competição a composição a comunicação a concepção a conclusão a condição a constituição a construção a criação a decisão a declaração a definição a designação a dimensão a direcção a discussão a disposição a distribuição a divisão a edição a educação a eleição a emoção a estação a evolução a excepção a expansão a explicação a exploração a exportação a exposição a expressão a extensão a federação a formação a função a fundação a geração a impressão a inflação a informação a instalação a instituição a intenção a interpretação a intervenção a investigação a ligação a manifestação a missão a nação a negociação a obrigação a observação a ocasião a opção a operação a opinião a oposição a organização a orientação a paixão a participação a população a posição a preocupação a pressão a prisão a privatização a produção a profissão a protecção a publicação a reacção a realização a redução a região a relação a religião a representação a resolução a reunião a revisão a revolução a secção a selecção a sensação a sessão a situação a solução a televisão a tradição a transformação a união a utilização a variação a versão a visão a votação |
o apresentação o avião o coração |
| Masculine: Other words ending in -ão |
o alcatrão o algodão o balcão o cão o capitão o cartão o chão o cidadão o escaldão o feijão o órgão o padrão o pão o patrão |
a gestão a mão a questão a razão |
| Feminine: Most words ending in -a |
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(likely also greek) |
| Feminine: Words ending in -ez |
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| Feminine: Words ending -dade -ie -tude -gem -ice -ã |
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| Feminine: Names of towns & countries |
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Places specifically named after male things:
Places consisting of a male noun + adjective
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| Feminine: Names of the Academic Arts and Science subjects |
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*=Note that some of these change their endings but some – like dirigente, cientista, keep the same ending.
**= Jeremy Clarkson would love this, I’m sure
Appendix 1: Not-So-Easy E
Some teachers say that nouns ending in E are split between abstract and concrete. However, as you can see, contrary to the textbook rule, it’s mixed pretty evenly on both sides. Conclusion: the rule is bollocks, I’m afraid, and we’ll just have to learn these the hard way.
| Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|
| In theory, these should all be concrete (things you can see and touch) | In theory these should all be abstract (ideas, emotions) |
| o acidente o ambiente o ataque o barrete o breve o clube o combate o continente o controle o corte o costume o crime o debate o dente o destaque o empate o exame o filme o gabinete o golpe o horizonte o instante o interesse o legume o leite o limite o mestre o monte o nome o nordeste o padre o parque o peixe o príncipe o regime o romance o sangue o telefone o teste o transporte o vale o volume |
a análise a arte a árvore a ave a base a carne a chave a classe a corte a crise a estante a face a fase a fome a fonte a frase a frente a gente a gripe a hipótese a mãe a metade a morte a noite a parede a parte a pele a ponte a posse a rede a saúde a sede a sorte a tarde a torre a vontade |
(NB Corte appears in both sides because it can mean either “The court” or “The cut”, both reasonably common but having differing genders just to be bloody awkward)
Apprendix 2: Mistakes, Mis-Shapes, Misfits
When I’d counted all the words that fit the rules and the exceptions, there was a short list left over of words that met none of the rules. The majority seem to be masculine, apart from fé, lei, ordem and nuvem.
- a fé
- o fim
- o gás
- o jardim
- a lei
- o mês
- a nuvem
- a ordem
- o país
- o pé
- o som
- o tom
Appendix 3: the List of 1000 Most-used Portuguese Words
I got the list from a site called Hackingportuguese but I took out a couple of words that I saw that were Brazil-specific and a couple that looked like they were (at least in European Portuguese) only used as adjectives, and replaced them with random nouns from a Memrise deck, to bulk it up to a thousand again. I subjected the survivors to extreme torture in an excel spreadsheet in order to see how many exceptions there were, using Excel formulae to check the ending against the supposed rule. My version of the list is available as a spreadsheet here in case you want to play with it and check my work.
Luso 
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