# male and female animals in Finnish



## akana

I've gotten some conflicting info on how the vocabulary works for male and female animals. So I have two questions:

1) Is there a generic pair of terms that one could use when in doubt? Could you say, for example, _naispuolinen tiikeri or naistiikeri_ without sounding rather silly?

2) Could you advise on these examples?
For males:
koiras/uros/other-tiikeri
koiras/uros/other-kala
koiras/uros/other-valas
koiras/uros/other-krokotiili
koiras/uros/other-varpunen
koiras/uros/other-mehiläinen
koiras/uros/other-kukka

For females:
naaras/other-tiikeri
naaras/other-kala
naaras/other-valas
naaras/other-krokotiili
naaras/other-varpunen
naaras/other-mehiläinen
naaras/other-kukka

And if there are any other variables I've missed, I'd appreciate any advice.

Kiitos paljon!


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## Gavril

As far as I know, _naaraspuolinen _can work for any female animal or plant. For males, both _koiraspuolinen _and _urospuolinen _are used depending on the specific animal (_koiraspuolinen _seems to be used for male plants). I don't know if there is any all-encompassing "male" term; a while ago, I started a thread (link) that touches on this question.

Finnish Wikipedia has a list of some of the terms for specific animals:

Koiras-/urospuoliset eläimet: http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koiras

Naaraspuoliset eläimet: http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naaras

I wouldn't rely on Wikipedia as the final authority for this, but it can at least be a starting point for further investigation.


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## Couac

Koiras is more all-encompassing than uros, but uros should be used for the most common and rather large mammals:

uros
1. vars. suurista nisäkkäistä: yksilö jossa syntyy siittiösoluja, koiras.

koiras
1. urospuolinen eläin, uros. Koiras ja naaras.

Naaras is a solid name for all female animals. The most common and popular animals have special names for their male and female counterparts (such as urosporo = hirvas, naarasporo = vaadin, uroskissa = kolli, naaraskoira = narttu etc. but you can always replace these special names with naaras and uros/koiras).


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