neuter
noun · adjective · verb
Form of neut , comparative of neut.
Simple meaning
An organism, either vegetable or animal, which at its maturity has no generative organs, or but imperfectly developed ones.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nooterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnutɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The act of neutering (typically an animal)
biology
An organism, either vegetable or animal, which at its maturity has no generative organs, or but imperfectly developed ones, as a plant without stamens or pistils, as the garden Hydrangea; especially, one of the imperfectly developed females of certain social insects, as of the ant and the common honeybee, which perform the labors of the community, and are called workers.
A person who takes no part in a contest; someone remaining neutral.
adjective
grammar
Having a form which is not masculine nor feminine; or having a form which is not of common gender.
grammar
Intransitive.
literary
Sexless, nonsexual.
of an animal
Castrated; having had the reproductive organs removed.
verb
Remove the ovaries of
transitive
To remove sex organs from an animal to prevent it from having offspring; to castrate or spay, particularly as applied to domestic animals.
transitive
To rid of sexuality.
transitive
To drastically reduce the effectiveness of something.
transitive
To make grammatically neuter.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having a form which is not masculine nor feminine; or having a form which is not of common gender.
Used this way, neuter is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use neuter
- “`it' is the third-person singular neuter pronoun.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.