Many nouns which are distinguished by gender are archaic. The word archaic means that these nouns are considered old-fashioned, and are not used very often now. However, nouns distinguished by gender are found in older texts, and therefore, students should be familiar with them. For example, a male writer is an author, and a female writer is an authoress. Other nouns distinguishing gender are here to stay: brother and sister, husband and wife, niece and nephew, boy and girl, etc. Click here to print.