Why does the dictionary not have a gender for "часы"

Question

It only says it is a noun and in singular number.

Could you please name this dictionary? – Quassnoi Jan 19 '13 at 18:26 — Quassnoi, Jan 19 '13 at 18:26

texnic · Answer 1 · 2013-01-20T22:27:23.750

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Because it is a plural form and is only used as such. For example, 'one clock' would be одни часы in Russian. Similar words are ножницы, сани, колготки etc.

edited Jan 20 '13 at 22:27

answered Jan 19 '13 at 17:51

texnic

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Sorry, the word колготы is unofficial and vernacular Russian (i.e. in the dictionaries it is not mentioned ). other forum link I would suggest replacing it by колготки. – petajamaja Jan 19 '13 at 19:18
But I like your answer =) – petajamaja Jan 19 '13 at 19:23
@Unari even if word is vernacular, it, generally speaking, does not matter that it is not mentioned in dictionaries ;) – shabunc Jan 19 '13 at 20:50
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oh yes @shabunc, my comment lacks logic. =) I should have used conjunction, not equivalence here. – petajamaja Jan 19 '13 at 21:24
@Umari It never appeared to me that the normal form was колготки. Although колготы is available on gramota.ru, I have changed it in the answer. Thanks! – texnic Jan 20 '13 at 22:28
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@Umari Some more elaboration on the topic: http://www.caretta-shop.ru/statall/19/stat58/ – texnic Jan 20 '13 at 22:30

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 18 '20 at 08:26

Quassnoi is right asking what dictionary doesn't have the gender mark for the word часы. For example, wikidictionary specifies that the gender is masculine as well as it specifies that the word is only used in plural.

Other dictionaries, which I checked, for example Щерба, Матусевич. Русско-французский словарь, 1993, only specify plural, and no gender for часы.

Not specifying gender for the words that are only used in plural makes sense for Russian language because their gender has only historical value and does not manifests itself grammatically in any way. In Russian neither endings of adjectives, nor endings of verbs will differ when they are related to plural nouns of different genders. Compare with French which differentiates gender in plural via adjective endings:

palissades vertes (fem.) - зелёные заборы

feux verts (masc.) - зелёные огни

At the time, Russian differentiated gender in some pl. forms too. http://russian.stackexchange.com/questions/941/%D0%92%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B5-or-%D0%B2%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%8F-in-old-orthography — Quassnoi, Jan 20 '13 at 21:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 19 '13 at 18:27

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Actually it is not a singular, but so called 'pluralia tantum', or nouns normally used in plural (e.g. like English 'news').

The paradigm for this type of declension is the same as for plural of час/часы (= hour/hours).

edited Jan 19 '13 at 18:27

Quassnoi

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answered Jan 19 '13 at 17:20

Manjusri

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Why does the dictionary not have a gender for "часы"

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