Neuter

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Neuter \Neu"ter\, n.
     1. A person who takes no part in a contest; one who is either
        indifferent to a cause or forbears to interfere; a
        neutral.
        [1913 Webster]
  


              The world's no neuter; it will wound or save.
                                                    --Young.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Gram.)
        (a) A noun of the neuter gender; any one of those words
            which have the terminations usually found in neuter
            words.
        (b) An intransitive verb.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Biol.) 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; esp., 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.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Neuter \Neu"ter\, a. [L., fr. ne not + uter whether; akin to E.
     whether. See {No}, and {Whether}, and cf. {Neither}.]
     1. Neither the one thing nor the other; on neither side;
        impartial; neutral. [Archaic]
        [1913 Webster]
  
              In all our undertakings God will be either our
              friend or our enemy; for Providence never stands
              neuter.                               --South.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Gram.)
        (a) Having a form belonging more especially to words which
            are not appellations of males or females; expressing
            or designating that which is of neither sex; as, a
            neuter noun; a neuter termination; the neuter gender.
        (b) Intransitive; as, a neuter verb.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Biol.) Having no generative organs, or imperfectly
        developed ones; sexless. See {Neuter}, n., 3.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  neuter \neu"ter\, v. t.
     To render incapable of sexual reproduction; to remove or
     alter the sexual organs so as to make infertile; to alter; to
     fix; to desex; -- in male animals, to {castrate}; in female
     animals, to {spay}.
     [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  neuter
       adj 1: of grammatical gender; "`it' is the third-person singular
              neuter pronoun" [ant: {masculine}, {feminine}]
       2: having no or imperfectly developed or nonfunctional sex
          organs [syn: {sexless}]
       n : a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to
           inanimate objects (neither masculine nor feminine)
       v : remove the ovaries of; "Is your cat spayed?" [syn: {alter},
           {spay}, {castrate}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  91 Moby Thesaurus words for "neuter":
     Laodicean, alter, animate, anythingarian, apathetic, asexual,
     capon, castrate, castrated, centrist, change, cold, common gender,
     contemplative, cool, cut, desex, desexualize, do-nothing, doctor,
     dormant, emasculate, emasculated, epicene, eunuchize, eunuchized,
     even, feminine, fence-sitter, fervorless, fifty-fifty, fix, frigid,
     frustrated, geld, gender, half-and-half, halfhearted, idle,
     immobile, impartial, impotent, inactive, inanimate, independent,
     indifferent, inert, laissez-aller, laissez-faire, lukewarm,
     masculine, meditative, midway, moderate, motionless, mugwump,
     mutilate, neutral, nonaligned, noncommitted, nonpartisan,
     nothingarian, on the fence, paralytic, paralyzed, passive,
     perfunctory, procrastinating, quiescent, quietist, quietistic,
     sexless, spay, stagnant, stagnating, standpat, static, stationary,
     tepid, third force, third world, third-force, third-world,
     uncommitted, uninvolved, unsex, unsexed, unsexual, vegetable,
     vegetative, zealless