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المُذَكَّر والمُؤَنَّث في اللغة العربية
Masculine and Feminine in Arabic
Part 1

Languages differ when it comes to distinguishing between masculine and feminine words. Some languages have no difference between both of them, while others have some rules regarding this subject including Arabic.

So, how can we differentiate masculine and feminine in Arabic?

The answer is: signs of femininity “علامات التَّأنيث”, in Arabic we have some signs that help us recognize most of feminine words and they are:

audio المَعْنَى
Meaning
audioمِثال
example
audio شَكْلها
How it looks like
audio علامة التأنيث
Sign of femininity

Female student
Car

audio

طالِبَة
سَيَّارة

ة \ ــة

audio

تَاء مَربوطة

Sky

audio

سَمَاء

اء

audio

أَلِف مَمْدودة

Laila (female name)

audio

لَيْلَى

ى

audio

ألِف مَقْصورة

  • However, there are some exceptions as some masculine words have one of these signs and other feminine words don’t. To have a better understanding of this matter, we should know the types of feminine words:

    Most of the feminine words in Arabic have one of the signs that we have mentioned earlier. However, there are also some words that are considered feminine without having a sign of femininity. So, now let’s see the types of feminine words in Arabic:

:مُؤَنَّث لَفْظِي *

A word that has a sign of femininity but indicates a masculine meaning.
Examples:

Travelerرَحَّالةaudio
Bushra (name of a man)بُشْرَىaudio
Scholar/ expertعلَّامةaudio
Hamza (name of a man)حَمْزَةaudio

:مُؤَنَّث مَعْنَوي *

A word which indicates a feminine meaning but doesn’t have a sign of femininity.
Examples:

Sunشَمْسaudio
Houseدارaudio
Zainab (female name)زَيْنَبaudio
Hend (female name)هِنْدaudio

:مُؤَنَّث لفظي ومعنوي *

A word that has a sign of femininity and indicates a feminine meaning:
Examples:

Female doctorطبيبةaudio
Esraa (female name)إسْراءaudio
Fatema (female name)فاطِمَةaudio
Salma (female name)سَلْمَىaudio

* Now, here are some other examples. Can you identify each type of them?
مُعَلِّمَة، بِنْت، طاوِلَة، كَأس، صَحَراء، ذِكْرَى، طائِرَة، قِطَّة، عَيْن

* Note: An easy rule to change the gender from masculine to feminine here is to add the letter "taa marbouta" "ة" to the masculine form for most of the Arabic adjectives to make it feminine. Depending on the letter that precedes it "taa marbouta" can look like this (ة) or like this (ـة).

Wordaudioمُؤَنَّث
Feminine
audio مُذَكَّر
Masculine

Beautiful

audio

جَميلة

audio

جَميل

Big, old

audio

كبيرة

audio

كبير

Small, young

audio

صغيرة

audio

صغير

To be continued

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