Nouns in Arabic: A Practical Guide

When learning Arabic, understanding how to use nouns is essential. Nouns are fundamental elements of language, representing people, places, things, and ideas. This article provides a comprehensive guide on nouns in Arabic in both Standard and colloquial Arabic (including Levantine, Egyptian, Gulf, and Darija). By exploring key aspects of Arabic nouns, you’ll be able to use them in everyday conversation.

Why’s it important to know the gender of nouns in Arabic?

If you’ve ever studied a romance language (such as French or Spanish), you probably know how important it is to know the gender of individual nouns. It’s the same in Arabic. In order to speak correctly, noun gender affects the words used to modify and refer back to that specific noun. For example, you’d never say البنت جميل but rather البنت جميلة (the girl is beautiful). That’s because بنت (girl) is feminine, and so it needs a feminine adjective جميلة (beautiful) to modify it. Likewise, you’d never say الولد جميلة but rather الولد جميل (the boy is beautiful). Since ولد (boy) is masculine, we must use the masculine form for “beautiful” (جميل) . The gender also affects which pronouns we use and how we conjugate verbs.

How do you know the gender of nouns in Arabic?

In Arabic, like in the romance languages, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. But don’t worry, you don’t need to memorize which one’s which. Fortunately, there are useful shortcuts to correctly guess the gender of over 99% of the Arabic nouns out there.

General rules

Natural gender: Some words are masculine or feminine by nature. Think back to بنت (girl) and ولد (boy) cited before. The former is feminine and the latter is masculine by nature, the same as in English.
The most common and important predictor of whether a noun is feminine or masculine is whether or not it ends in ـة . If it ends in ـة , it’s generally feminine. If it doesn’t end in ـة , in generally masculine. For example, كنبة (couch) is feminine but كرسي (chair) is masculine. If you just remember this rule and none other, you’ll be able to modify and conjugate over 90% of Arabic nouns correctly!
Words that end in ـى and ـاء are also feminine, like صحراء (desert), سماء (sky), ذكرى (memory), بشرى (good news).
- In colloquial Arabic, the ء often drops, so you get صحرا (desert) and سما (sky), so, in that case, you can just look or listen for the ا , which incidentally makes the same sound as ـة. So it shouldn’t be hard to remember at all.
There are some exceptions to the above rules and they are as follows:
1. Countries and city names are usually feminine, such as مصر (Egypt), أمريكا (America), تونس (Tunisia), البرازيل (Brazil), القاهرة (Cairo), واشنطن (Washington), though with some exceptions: العراق (Iraq), لبنان (Lebanon), المغرب (Morocco), السودان (Sudan), الرباط (Rabat), الخرطوم (Khartoum), بغداد (Baghdad), بيروت (Beirut), القدس (Jerusalem).
2. Body parts that come in pairs are usually feminine nouns in Arabic despite not having the above-mentioned suffixes, such as عين (Eye), خد (cheek), يد (Hand) in Standard Arabic and Darija or إيد in other dialects.
3. Some elements of nature are feminine nouns despite not having the above-mentioned suffixes: شمس (Sun), ريح (Wind), نار (Fire), أرض (Earth).
4. Thankfully, only a very small number of nouns are considered feminine without any explanation. In addition to the elements of nature listed above, there’s also حرب (War), دار (House), نفس (Soul), كأس (Cup).

Examples of masculine and feminine nouns

English	Standard Arabic	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija	Classification
Car	سيّارة	سيّارة	عربيّة	سيّارة	سيّارة	Feminine (ends is ـة)
Amman	عمّان	عمّان	عمّان	عمّان	عمّان	Feminine (country capital)
Woman	امرأة	مرا	ست	مرا	مرا	Feminine (by nature)
Daughter	بنت	بنت	بنت	بنت	بنت	Feminine (by nature)
hand	يد	إيد	إيد	يد	يد	Feminine (body part in pairs)
Leg	رجل	رجل	رجل	رجل	رجل	Feminine (body part in pairs)
Man	رجل	رجّال	راجل	رجّال	راجل	Masculine by nature
Boy	ولد	ولد	ولد	ولد	ولد	Masculine by nature
Book	كتاب	كتاب	كتاب	كتاب	كتاب	Masculine (doesn’t end in ـة)
Pen	قلم	قلم	قلم	قلم	قلم	Masculine (doesn’t end in ـة)
Preacher	داعية	داعية	داعية	داعية	داعية	Masculine (by nature – think stereotypes)
Hamza (given name for males)	حمزة	حمزة	حمزة	حمزة	حمزة	Masculine (by nature)
Osama (given name for males)	أسامة	أسامة	أسامة	أسامة	أسامة	Masculine (by nature)
Key	مفتاح	مفتاح	مفتاح	مفتاح	مفتاح	Masculine (doesn’t end in ـة)
Ring	خاتم	خاتم	خاتم	خاتم	خاتم	Masculine (doesn’t end in ـة)

Professions commonly practiced by both men and women are masculine when performed by a man, and become feminine when performed by a woman by adding ـة to the end.

Teacher مدرس (m) / مدرسة (f)
Artist فنان (m) / فنانة (f)
Accountant محاسب (m) / محاسبة (f)
Engineer مهندس (m) / مهندسة (f)

Singular, dual, and plural nouns in Arabic

Nouns in Arabic can be singular, dual, or plural. Singular nouns refer to one entity, dual nouns refer to two, and plural nouns refer to three or more. While the dual form is less common in colloquial Arabic and often replaced with the plural form, it’s still useful to recognize.

Regular plural nouns

For the majority of English nouns, if we’re talking about more than one of something, we simply add “s” to the end of the word. But there are exceptions, like child/children. It’s very similar in Arabic: for many nouns, you can get the plural form by adding the suffix ين if the noun is masculine (in Arabic dialects) and by adding the suffix ين or ون (in Standard Arabic), or ات if the noun is feminine. For example:

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
Teacher (m)	مدرّس معلّم	مدرّس معلّم	مدرّس	مدرّس معلّم	معلّم
Teachers (m)	مدرّسين مدرّسون معلّمين معلّمون	مدرّسين معلّمين	مدرّسين	مدرّسين معلّمين	معلّمين
Teacher (f)	مدرّسة معلّمة	مدرّسة معلّمة	مدرّسة	مدرّسة معلّمة	معلّمة
Teachers (f)	مدرّسات معلّمات	مدرّسات معلّمات	مدرّسات	مدرّسات معلّمات	معلّمات

Broken Plurals

However, for many Arabic nouns, you get the plural form by rearranging the word’s letters and/or adding some vowels. For example:

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
Man	رجل	رجّال	راجل	رجّال	راجل
Men	رجال	رجال	رجالة	رجال	رجال
Dog	كلب	كلب	كلب	كلب	كلب
Dogs	كلاب	كلاب	كلاب	كلاب	كلاب
Girl	بنت	بنت	بنت	بنت	بنت
Girls	بنات	بنات	بنات	بنات	بنات
Young man	شاب	شب	شاب	شاب	شاب
Young men	شباب	شباب	شباب	شباب	شباب

This form of plural is known as broken plurals since they don’t follow the usual rule.

A Jordanian comedian talks about a stereotype in the Arab world that says girls can’t be funny. Note her use of broken plurals شباب and بنات

Watch full video

Dual form

To form the dual of a noun in Arabic dialects, you typically add the suffix ين to the end of the noun. In Moroccan Darija, the word جوج is placed before the plural form to indicate the dual. In Standard Arabic, the dual is marked by adding either ين or ان depending on the case. For feminine nouns that end in ـة, the ة is changed to ت before attaching the ين suffix.

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
A sentence	جملة	جملة	جملة	جملة	جملة
Two sentences	جملتين جملتان	جملتين	جملتين	جملتين	جوج جمل
A pen	قلم	قلم	قلم	قلم	قلم
Two pens	قلمين قلمان	قلمين	قلمين	قلمين	جوج أقلام

Pluralization of nouns ending in ي in Arabic dialects

For nouns that end with the letter ي, the plural is often formed by adding the suffix ـة. This rule is more commonly observed in Arabic dialects than in Standard Arabic. In the table below, the non-bolded words indicate that the noun, in the specified dialect, does not follow this particular rule.

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
Thief	لص	حرامي	حرامي	حرامي	سراق شفّار
Thieves	لصوص	حرامية	حرامية	حرامية	سراق شفارة
Gardener	بستانيّ	جنايني جنيناتي	جنايني	مزارع	جارديني
Gardeners	بستانيّون بستانيّين	جناينية جنيناتية	جناينية	مزارعين	جاردينية
Thug	بلطجي	بلطجي	بلطجي	X	مشرمل
Thugs	بلطجية	بلطجية	بلطجية	X	مشرملين

In this Jordanian comedy from real-world videos, a thief asks the police officer about the location of the thieves’ market (سوق الحرامية). Note the broken plural حرامية (thieves).

Watch full video

Referring to pairs of items

Unlike English, Arabic often uses singular forms when referring to common pairs, as shown in the table below. The non-bolded words indicate that the term in the specified dialect does not follow this rule.

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
Shoes	حذاء	حذاء كندرة	جزمة	جوتي جزمة	صبّاط
Socks	جورب	جراب	شراب	شراب	تقاشر
Gloves	قفاز	كفوف	جوانتي	قفاز	ليكات وانطيس
Earrings	أقراط	حلق	حلق	حلق	حوالق حلاقات

This Egyptian lady refers to gloves (جوانتي) using the singular pronoun ده. Since جوانتي here refers to a pair, it gets treated as singular.

Watch full video

Referring to single items in a pair

To refer to a single item in a pair, Levantine and Egyptian use فردة and Darija uses واحد . Standard and Gulf Arabic don’t use this construction:

English	Levantine	Egyptian	Darija
One shoe	فردة حذاء فردة كندرة	فردة جزمة	فردة صبّاط
One sock	فردة جراب	فردة شراب	واحد تقشيرة
One earring	فردة حلق	فردة حلق	واحد حلاقة

Definite and indefinite nouns in Arabic

In Arabic, nouns can be definite or indefinite. Definite nouns refer to specific items, while indefinite nouns refer to general items. Definite nouns are often marked by the article ال similar to (the) in English. Arabic doesn’t have an equivalent for “a” or “an”.

Indefinite: كتاب (a book)
Definite: الكتاب (the book)

Compound nouns in Arabic

In Arabic, compound nouns are created by combining two nouns, where one noun describes or specifies the other. This structure is often used to convey more specific meanings by linking two related concepts.

For example:

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
Train station	محطة قطار	محطة قطار	محطة قطر	محطة قطار	محطة التران
Bus stop	موقف باص	موقف باص	موقف اتوبيس	محطة الباص	محطة الكيران
Paper bag	‏كيس ورقيّ	كيس ورق	شنطة ورق	شنطة ورق	قفة دالكرطون

Possessive forms in Arabic

Possession in Arabic is typically indicated by adding a suffix to the noun. Possessive forms vary depending on the person who owns the object.

For example:

English	Standard	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
My book	كتابي	كتابي	كتابي	كتابي	كتابي
Your (male) book	كتابك	كتابك	كتابك	كتابك	كتابك
Your (female) book	كتابك	كتابك	كتابك	كتابك	كتابك
His book	كتابه	كتابو	كتابو	كتابه	كتابو
Her book	كتابها	كتابها كتابا	كتابها	كتابها	كتابها
Our book	كتابنا	كتابنا	كتابنا	كتابنا	كتابنا
Their book	كتابهم	كتابهون كتابن كتابهم	كتابهم	كتابهم	كتابهم

Possessive words

Instead of using construction above, special words can get inserted instead to convey possession. For example, instead of كتابي for “my book,” in Levantine Arabic you can say: الكتاب تبعي . That’s sort of like the difference in English between saying “my book” and “the book belonging to me,” but Arabic uses the latter form a lot.

Let’s take another example, this time from Egyptian. For “Ahmed’s book,” instead of كتاب أحمد you can say الكتاب بتاع أحمد

These same constructions apply to all major dialects of Arabic. Only the word indicating possession changes based on dialect, gender and number of the thing being possessed, as shown in this table:

	Levantine	Egyptian	Gulf	Darija
Masculine	تبع	بتاع	مال	ديال
Feminine	تبعت تبعيت	بتاعة	مالت	ديالت
Plural	تبعون تبعوت	بتوع	مالت	دياول

Another word commonly used for indicating possession is ل , which doesn’t change based on gender or number. This is used in MSA and all dialects. For example, “the book is mine.” becomes الكتاب لي , and “the book is ours” becomes الكتاب لنا , with the suffix adapting to the appropriate gender and number. In addition to, Levantine Arabic also uses إل , which is the same thing as لaudiofile url=”https://api.playaling.com/upload/audio/938ff1b7bad6c4b01e732f56231bd437/msa.mp3?h=17280330364029″]. For example, “the book is mine.” becomes الكتاب إلي . While all varieties of Arabic use ل , only Levantine Arabic uses إل .

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