What gender is the word dog? - briefly
The word "dog" is neuter in grammatical gender. It does not distinguish between male and female forms.
What gender is the word dog? - in detail
The English language does not assign grammatical gender to nouns in the way that some other languages, such as French or German, do. In these languages, every noun is classified as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, and this classification affects the form of adjectives, articles, and sometimes verbs that agree with the noun.
In English, however, nouns are not categorized by gender in this way. The word "dog," like all other English nouns, is considered neutral from a grammatical perspective. This means that there are no specific grammatical rules or forms that change based on the gender of the dog. For example, whether you are referring to a male or female dog, you would still use the same article ("a" or "the") and the same adjectives to describe it.
Moreover, English pronouns are not typically used to indicate the gender of animals unless there is a specific context that requires such differentiation. For instance, if you need to specify the gender of a dog in a sentence, you might use "he" for a male dog or "she" for a female dog, but this is done based on common usage and understanding rather than any inherent grammatical rule.
Therefore, from a linguistic standpoint, the word "dog" does not have a gender in English. It is simply a noun that can refer to an animal of either sex without any grammatical implications.