Arabic has two genders, masculine and feminine. There’s a clear difference between masculine and feminine in Arabic. The terminology used for gender is الجِنْس, or al-jins which translates to “sex, race, kind”. Generally speaking, a noun is either masculine, feminine or of uncertain gender (sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine).

Masculine nouns don’t have a special form. On the other hand feminine nouns, have three specific forms ending with:

• The tā marbūṭa (ة): which is the biggest category.

• The alif ى (or ا): for elatives (اِسْم التَفْضِيل) and masculine adjectives in the pattern فَعْلانُ (diptote).

• The alif hamza (اء): for colors and deformities.

The tā marbūṭa (ة)

The letter hā  ه …ـه/ when written with two dots above (ة …ـة…) is pronounced as /t/, the same way that ت/ t/ is spoken. This form of writing, which occurs at the end of a word to signify femininity for nouns or adjectives, goes by the name “tā marbūṭa”. It’s an incredibly important component in proper pronunciation and understanding of the language.

The most common way to derive feminine nouns and adjectives is by adding the ending ـةٌ\..َ.ةٌ…َ /atun/ to the masculine form.

Masculine (المُذَكَّر)	Feminine (المُؤَنَّث)
هُوَ مُعَلِّمٌ   He is a teacher	هِيَ مُعَلِّمَةٌ  She is a teacher
هُوَ أَمِيرٌ  He is a prince	هِيَ أَمِيرةٌ She is a princess

Note: A few nouns with the feminine ending tā marbūṭa are masculine, because they are used only in reference to males, e.g

راوِِيَة  storyteller

عَلاّمة  great scholar

أُسامة  Usama

خَلِيفة  caliph

Note 2: Nouns ending in tā marbūṭa (ةٌ …َـةٌ…َ) /atun/ do not take the extra final alif  ا …in the indefinite accusative form. So the correct form is طالِبةً (not طالِبتًا).

Note 3: At the end of a sentence the final vowel of a word is normally not pronounced. Even tā marbūṭa is usually left unpronounced at the end of a sentence, as in طالِبةٌ ṭāliba for ṭālibatun.

The alif maqṣūra (ى)

The alif ى is used for elatives (اِسْم التَفْضِيل) and masculine adjectives in the pattern فَعْلانُ (diptote).

Elatives (أَسْماء التَفْضِيل)		Adjectives in فَعْلان (الصِفة المُشَبَهة)
أَكْبَر  bigger/biggest	آخَر  other	عَطْشان  thirsty	غَضْبان  angry	Masculine (المُذَكَّر)
كُبْرى  bigger/biggest	أُخْرى  other	عَطْشى  thirsty	غَضْبى  angry	Feminine (المُؤَنَّث)

The alif hamza (اء)

[restrict]

The alif hamza اء is used for colors and deformities.

Colors (الأَلْوان)		Deformities (العُيُوب)
أَحْمَر  red	أَشْقَر  blond	أَعْرَج  lame	أَعْمى  blind	Masculine (المُذَكَّر)
حَمْراء  red	شَقْراء  blond	عَرْجاء  lame	عَمْياء  blind	Feminine (المُؤَنَّث)

Feminine words by nature

• When it comes to most of the body’s paired parts or organs, they tend to be identified as feminine – for example:

أُذُن ear

عَيْن  eye

قَدَم foot

• Some words are feminine by nature because they can only relate to women:

حامِل  pregnant

عَرُوس  bride

أُمّ mother

• Geographical proper names, including the titles of countries, cities, towns and villages are typically considered feminine:

بارِيس  Paris

دِمَشْق  Damascus

تُونِس  Tunis

• A few nouns are feminine by usage:

شَمْس  sun

أَرْض  earth

حَرْب war

• Any being or object not endowed with reason is considered feminine singular in Arabic whether the noun is plural or not.

Note: Some words can be considered both feminine and masculine like:

• The names of the letters of the alphabet (even though they are rather feminine).
• Other regular nouns:

سُوق  market

حال  condition

سِكِّين  knife

• Hyperbolic participles on patterns فَعِيل and فَعول (which we’ll see in the Intermediate part).
• Collective nouns (which we’ll see in the Advanced part).

Note 2: If two nouns of different gender are qualified by the same element, that element will be in the masculine dual.

المَرْأةُ والرَجُلُ فِلِسْطِينِيانِ

The man and the woman are Palestinian