Ministry of higher and secondary special education of the republic of uzbekistan теrmez state university department of philology and teaching languages: on theme

Feminizing suffixes
Old English has two nouns for many types of people: a general term which can refer to both males and females, like Modern English "waiter," and a separate term which refers only to females, like Modern English "waitress." Several different suffixes are used to specify females:

• 
  -en is added to miscellaneous words such as god ("god") → gyden ("goddess"), ielf ("elf") → ielfen ("female elf"), þeġn ("servant") → þiġnen ("female servant"), þēow ("slave") → þiewen ("female slave"), and nēahġebūr ("neighbor") → nēahġebȳren ("female neighbor").
  

• 
  -estre is the female equivalent of -ere and -end, both meaning "-er." It is used on many nouns such as sangere ("singer") → sangestre ("female singer"), lufiend ("lover") → lufestre ("female lover"), bæcere ("baker") → bæcestre, tæppere ("bartender") → tæppestre, and forspennend ("pimp") → forspennestre.
  

• 
  -e is the female equivalent of -a, which was sometimes a regular noun ending with no meaning and sometimes yet another suffix meaning "-er." Examples include wyrhta ("worker") → wyrhte and foregenġa ("predecessor") → foregenġe.
  

Sometimes the female equivalent is a totally separate word, as in lārēow ("teacher") ~ lǣrestre ("female teacher," as if the general term were *lǣrere), lǣċe ("doctor") ~ lācnestre ("female doctor," as if the general term were *lācnere), and hlāford ("master," literally "bread guardian") ~ hlǣfdiġe ("mistress," literally "bread kneader").
Case
As in several other old Germanic languages, Old English declensions include five cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and instrumental.

• 
  Nominative: the subject of a sentence, which carries out the action. Hē lufode hīe ("he loved her"), þæt mæġden rann ("the girl ran"). Words on the other side of "to be" also take this case: in the phrase wyrd is eall ("destiny is all"), both "destiny" and "all" are nominative.
  
• 
  Accusative: the direct object, that which is acted upon. Hē lufode hīe ("he loved her"), sē ridda ācwealde þone dracan ("the knight slew the dragon").
  
• 
  Genitive: the possessor of something. Ġesāwe þū þæs hundes bān? ("Have you seen the dog's bone?"). This case was much more frequent than the possessive is in Modern English, because Old English had no word for "of." Hence "the fall of Rome" was Rōme hryre, literally "Rome's fall," and "the god of thunder" was þunres god, literally "thunder's god." It was even used partitively, to signify that something was composed of something else: "a group of people" was manna hēap (literally "people's group"), "three of us" was ūre þrī ("our three"), and "a cup of water" was wætres cuppe ("water's cup").
  
• 
  Dative: the indirect object. Iċ sealde hire þone beall ("I gave her the ball").
  
• 
  Instrumental: something that is being used. Hwæl mē meahte mid āne sleġe besenċan oþþe ofslēan ("A whale could sink or kill me with one blow"). This case can be used without prepositions when the meaning is clear, as in ōðre naman, which means "[by] another name": Ūhtred sē Godlēasa æt Bebban byrġ, ōðre naman sē Deneslaga ("Uhtred the Godless of Bebbanburg, also known as the Daneslayer"). During the Old English period, the instrumental was falling out of use, having mostly merged with the dative. It was distinguished from the dative only in the masculine and neuter singular of strong adjectives and demonstratives, and even then the dative was often used instead.