Rule for masculine · der

Nouns ending in -or

-or → der · 0.7% (exception: das Tor)

The rule, in plain language

Many nouns of Latin origin ending in -or that name a person or a profession are masculine: der Autor, der Direktor, der Moderator. It only covers 0.7% of frequent words, but the pattern is easy to spot - the plural is usually formed with -oren (Autoren, Direktoren). Watch out, though, for das Tor (gate/goal) and its compound das Gegentor (goal conceded) - they have nothing to do with the Latin profession words and stay neuter, so keep them in mind as separate exceptions.

In the A1-B1 vocabulary of the Genau course, this rule covers 16 words (0.7%) and has 2 exceptions - all listed below.

Representative examples

The exceptions

These contradict the rule - learn them as-is:

All course words that follow this rule

Rules stick through practice. In the Genau app you train exactly this rule on its own words, with the GENAU! stamp on every correct answer - free, offline, no account. Coming soon to the App Store.