Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English, before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns, i.e. þo ule ("the-feminine owl") or using the pronoun "he" to refer to masculine nouns such as "helm" ("helmet"), or phrases such as "scaft stærcne" (strong shaft) with the masculine accusative adjective ending "-ne".