Meaning is much more

The meaning of a word is very often much more than what you'll learn if you use Webster as your source. Today, playing Scrabble with my sister, I used the word "braless," which you will note, has seven letters.

The dictionary defines braless as, "not wearing a bra."

Wait a minute, though. I'm not wearing a bra, but I wouldn't describe myself as braless. So, there has to be something more to it.

You'll have gotten it now: braless means "Not wearing a bra when it's normal that a person would be wearing one." And it's also clear that braless is a gender-specific word. It applies in all cases to women. There is an episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer invents a bra for men, but in order to specify what it is, he has to invent a name for it. He calls it the "bro." This underlines the fact that women wear bras; men don't.

There are a number of words that have this gender-specificity, though not often as strongly as with braless. The word "oaf," for instance, is always male. There aren't any female oafs. Same for "blockhead" and "dolt." On the other hand, "airhead" and "bubblehead" are female.

You can read into this what you want regarding female and male roles.