Husband is word appropriate to males (3)
I believe the answer is:
his
'word appropriate to males' is the definition.
('his' means belonging to a man)
'husband is' is the wordplay.
'husband' becomes 'h'.
'h'+'is'='HIS'
(Other definitions for his that I've seen before include "It belongs to him" , "Belonging to the male" , "That man's" , "Belonging to that man" , "that chap's" .)