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Understanding gender in Arabic: Is حرب masculine or feminine?

Oddly enough, حرب, the Arabic word for war, is feminine. There are many words in Arabic that look or feel masculine but are actually feminine.

Last updated: 1 month

Usually, it is pretty easy to identify the gender in Arabic.

But there are exceptions.

Indicators for feminine words

Let us first take a look at the regular feminine endings. In Arabi­c, there are 3 different indicators or signals to define a word as feminine.

تاء تَأْنِيثةطالِبة
ألِف تَأْنِيثمَمْدُودة – اءصَحْراء
ألِف تَأْنِيثمَقْصُورة – ى / ياكُبْرى, عُلْيا

Special kind of nouns

  • The ending اء is also the pattern for adjectives (صِفة) for colors and physical deficiencies in the singular feminine form.
  • The letter ى is the pattern for the feminine form of a com­parative (اِسْم تَفْضِيل). For example: older, smaller.

Here are some examples:

desertصَحْراء
smallerصُغْرَى
color redحَمْرَاء
memoryذِكْرَى

The Arabic word for “war”: حَرْب

It doesn’t look feminine – but it is feminine!

Like in other languages, there are words that look masculine by shape but are exceptions.

Common exceptions – words that look masculine but are feminine

Here is a with words that look masculine but are feminine.

warحَرْب
fireنار
sunشَمْس
landأَرْض
houseدار
windرِيح
soulنَفْس
cupكَأْس
wellبِئْر
marketسُوق
الْفِرْدَوْس
Ghoul; ghost غُول

Watch out: If you want to add an adjective, you will need the femin­ine form:

central market سُوق مَرْكَزِيّة

Gender of body parts in Arabic

When you have two parts of one (mostly pairs) like: legs (رِجْل), eyes (عَيْن), ears (أُذُن), tooth (سِنّ) or hands (يَد), then these words are also feminine. In contrast, the words for nose (أَنْف), mouth (فَم), etc. are masculine as you only have one!

Some parts of the body can be either masculine or feminine, like: head (رَأْس), liver (كَبِد) or upper arm(عَضُد)

Also feminine are:

  • names of newspapers and magazines, for example: (الْأهْرام)
  • names of countries, cities and towns are normally femin­ine, except: Morocco (الْمَغْرِب), Jordan (الأُرْدُن), Lebanon (لُبْنان), Iraq (الْعِراق) and Sudan (السُّدان)

Arabic nouns which can be treated as masculine or feminine

Some examples:

countryبَلَد
skyسَماء
wineخَمْر
wayسَبِيل
roadطَرِيق
alleyزُقاق
powerسُلْطان
situation
saltمِلْح
goldذَهَب
hell(fire) جَحِيم
soulرُوح

More grammar related topics:

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Meenhaz
Meenhaz
2 years ago

since sex organ (penis or vagina) is single, can I say them masculine?
thank you.

Abu Muhammad
Abu Muhammad
5 years ago

Hi you mentioned سوق is feminine when in reality it can be both masculine and feminine

Mike
Mike
6 years ago

Very interesting read!
I will add حَرْب to my list of growing words that are feminine for some weird reason even though they break the usual laws.

I am just curious as a beginner to MSA what resources can we refer to to identify if a word is masculine or feminine?

All the dictionaries that I have tried dont seem to list grammatic gender which is very frustrating to a beginner

Thanks!

Mike
Mike
6 years ago

Thanks a lot Gerald!
That was very helpful of you!

I havent checked ot for all the words but most of the words I checked have the “f” for female.

Thanks again and sorry for the late reply

Tayyaba
Tayyaba
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Are you muslim? Or it is your native language?

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