Other forms: neutered, neutering, neuters
To neuter is to operate on an animal so that it cannot breed. Neuter the cat, get him neutered, a neutered dog.
It covers both sexes, where spay is used of females and castrate of males. Charities push it hard because unwanted litters are the main source of animals in shelters. In grammar, neuter is the gender that is neither masculine nor feminine — German and Latin have three genders and English effectively has none. Note that neuter means literally neither of two.
1verbneuterTo operate on an animal so it cannot breed.
“We had our cat neutered so that she wouldn't have kittens.”
2adjectivegrammaticalOf the grammatical gender that is neither masculine nor feminine.
“In German, 'Mädchen' is a neuter noun, even though it means a girl.”
neuter is a sterilising, or a gender.
Latin neuter is ne plus uter, neither of two. Neither and either are built the same way from English parts, and the grammatical sense came first.
Proto-Indo-European
*kʷ-
grc-koi
οὐδέτερος
Latin
neuter
Middle English
neutre
English, today
neuter
Middle English neutre, from Latin neuter, from ne + uter, a grc-koi οὐδέτερος; compare English either, English whether, and neither.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA