Adjective agreement after using "hembra" with a masculine noun?
This is a question of adjective agreement. I am writing a paper about cheetahs (yes, it's lame. It's better just not to ask 
) and the Spanish word is "el guepardo." I'm unsure where this word is like perro and gato that can just be changed to a feminine noun, so I am going to say "el guepardo hembra". But then if I want to describe further that it lives "alone", what gender would that adjective be?
Thanks in advance!
P.S. Although I only typed the question in English, if you can read English but would rather respond in Spanish, I read and understand Spanish pretty well, so feel free!
3 Answers
There are many words with a fixed gender (in Spanish, "epicenos"), and for sexual plants and animals, you add "macho" and "hembra" to specify their sex. However, the grammatical agreement always depends on the gender:
El tiburón es peligroso
El tiburón macho es peligroso
El tiburón hembra es peligroso
La golondrina
La golondrina macho es muy alta
La golondrina hembra es muy alta
According to R A E, onza.
According to wordreference, chita.
Both say the word given by the other means something else.
Thank you lorenzo, but I am still curious about the answer to my original question of general adjective agreement. Any thoughts?
Hembra is an invariant adjective, meaning the same spelling is used for masculine and feminine nouns. However, if different words are used for the male and female, you might end up saying something like "female bull", which doesn't make much sense. Using hembra as a noun may be safer, as in "la hembra del guepardo".
Gramaticalmente, los nombres de los animales pueden ser de género masculino o femenino. Por ejemplo:
El elefante, la elefanta; el gato, la gata; el perro, la perra; el burro, la burra, el león, la leona; el oso, la osa...
En estos casos, la diferencia de sexo coincide con el género gramatical.
Sin embargo, algunos nombres de animales son sólo de género masculino (búho, rinoceronte, hipopótamo, leopardo, etc.) o femenino (como hormiga, mosca, pantera, serpiente, etc.).
En estos casos, la diferencia de sexo se señala mediante la oposición macho/hembra. El género gramatical es invariable: masculino o femenino. Por ejemplo:
El búho macho, el búho hembra; la mosca macho, la mosca hembra; el rinoceronte macho, el rinoceronte hembra; el leopardo macho, el leopardo hembra; la pantera macho, la pantera hembra...
Estos sustantivos se conocen como sustantivos epicenos.
