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" Blond ", with its continued gender-varied usage, is one of few adjectives in written English to retain separate masculine and feminine grammatical genders.

Each of the two forms, however, are pronounced the same way.

American Heritage's Book of English Usage propounds that, insofar as " a blonde " can be used to describe a woman but not a man who is merely said to possess blond ( e ) hair, the term is an example of a " sexist stereotype women are primarily defined by their physical characteristics.

" The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) records that the phrase " big blond beast " was used in the 20th century to refer specifically to men " of the Nordic type " ( that is to say, blond-haired ).

Particularly this had associations with Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch.

The OED also records that blond as an adjective is especially used with reference to women, in which case it is likely to be spelt " blonde ", citing three Victorian usages of the term.

The masculine version is used to describe a plural, in " blonds of the European race ", in a citation from 1833 Penny cyclopedia, which distinguishes genuine blondness as a Caucasian feature distinct from albinism.

By the early 1990s, " blonde moment " or being a " dumb blonde " had come into common parlance to mean " an instance of a person, esp.

a woman ... being foolish or scatter-brained.

" Another hair color word of French origin, brunet ( te ) ( from the same Germanic root that gave " brown "), also functions in the same way in orthodox English.

The OED gives " brunet " as meaning " dark-complexioned " or a " dark-complexioned person ", citing a comparative usage of brunet and blond to Thomas Henry Huxley in saying, " The present contrast of blonds and brunets existed among them ".

" Brunette " can be used, however, like " blonde ", to describe a mixed-gender populace.

The OED quotes Grant Allen, " The nation which resulted .. being sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette.