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Definition of male adjective from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

male

adjective
 
/meɪl/
 
/meɪl/
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  1. being a man or boy
    • a male friend/colleague/partner
    • a male nurse/model/dancer
    • All the participants were male, aged between 25 and 30.
    • The workforce is predominantly male.
    • There are three lead male characters in the film.
    • Female students asked more questions than their male counterparts.
    Homophones mail | malemail   male
     
    /meɪl/
     
    /meɪl/
    • mail noun
      • I think the card got lost in the mail.
    • mail verb
      • I'll mail you a formal invitation.
    • male adjective
      • The male characters in the novel are all well drawn.
    • male noun
      • The strongest male will become the leader of the pack.
    Extra Examples
    • Nate Parker was the romantic male lead in the film.
    • His only male role model is his school soccer coach, Ben.
    • Stomach cancer was the third most common cause of cancer mortality in the male population.
    • a decrease in the ratio of male to female babies
    Topics People in societya2
  2. (abbreviation m)
    belonging to the sex that does not lay eggs or give birth to babies
    • a male bird
    • male hormones/fertility/sexuality
    Extra Examples
    • In the past, scientists studied male physiology and applied the findings to women.
    • Beautiful male bodies abound in the visual art of the period.
    Topics Biologya2
    Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs
    • be
    adverb
    • entirely
    • exclusively
    • largely
    See full entry
  3. of men; typical of men; affecting men
    • male attitudes to women
    • traditionally male interests
    • The club is an exclusively male preserve.
    • (British English) a male voice choir
    compare masculine
    Extra Examples
    • Indigenous male life expectancy is 69 years.
    • I had grown up in a very male environment.
    • That was a very male way of dealing with things.
    • an essentially male Western view of progress
    Topics People in societya2
  4. (biology) (of a plant or flower) producing pollen
    • Live oaks produce male flowers called catkins.
    • Pollen has not been investigated, as male flowers were not available.
  5. (specialist) (of electrical plugs, parts of tools, etc.) having a part that sticks out that is designed to fit into a hole, socket, etc.
    • male connectors/adapters
    • A male connector and a female connector plug into each other.
    compare female
  6. Word Originlate Middle English: from Old French masle, from Latin masculus, from mas ‘a male’.
See male in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee male in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English
hide-and-seek
noun
 
 
From the Topic
Games and toys
C2
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