gendergender

Gender comes from Middle English gendre ‘kind, class’, from Old French gendre ‘type, kind’, from Latin genus ‘birth, kind’, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- ‘to beget’.

1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ǵenh₁-¹‘to produce, beget’reconstructed
2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ǵénh₁os¹‘race’reconstructed
3. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*genos¹reconstructed
4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEgenus²as genere‘birth, origin; kind, type’
5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400gendre²‘type, kind’
6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500gendre²‘type’
7. Englishearliest quotation c. 1603–1604gender²

1. ¹ Wiktionary, Latin genus
2. ² Wiktionary, English gender
3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice: “[…]plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed…”.