Masculine and Feminine in Arabic: Ta Marbuta and Beyond

Masculine and feminine in Arabic is a feature of every noun: each one is either mudhakkar (masculine) or mu'annath (feminine), and there is no neuter. Most feminine words end in a ta marbuta (ة), but some end in ى or اء and a few have no sign at all. Adjectives, verbs and pronouns change to agree with them.

This guide is for learners of Qur'anic Arabic who have met the ta marbuta and want the full picture of masculine and feminine nouns in Arabic. You will learn how to spot a feminine word, how to read the ta marbuta, which words are feminine without it, which masculine words look feminine, how to form the feminine, and how agreement works, with each point shown in an ayah.

How do you know if an Arabic word is masculine or feminine?

You can tell whether an Arabic word is feminine from its ending, from its meaning, or, for a small group of everyday words, simply by learning it. Gender belongs to the ism, the noun, one of the three building blocks of Arabic. Masculine is the default: a noun with no feminine sign, that does not refer to a female and is not on the short list of words feminine by usage, is masculine, like kitāb (book), qalam (pen) and bayt (house). Even the grammarians' terms are built from the Arabic words for male and female, dhakar and unthā, which sit side by side in this ayah:

What is the ta marbuta?

The ta marbuta (ة), the 'tied ta', is the most common sign of a feminine word in Arabic, written like a hāʾ with two dots above it. It is pronounced t when you join the word to the next one and a soft h when you stop on it, so jannatun (the -un is tanwin, covered in our guide to the harakat) becomes jannah at the end of a phrase. Our guide to waqf and ibtida explains what happens to word endings when you stop. You hear both sounds in this short ayah, t on the first word and h on the last:

Which Arabic words are feminine without a ta marbuta?

Feminine words in Arabic can lack a ta marbuta in three ways: they end in a different feminine sign, they refer to a female, or they are feminine by usage. The first group ends in alif maqsura (ى), as in kubrā and ḥusnā, or alif mamduda (اء), as in the yellow cow of 2:69, baqaratun ṣafrāʾ. Both endings belong to patterns you will meet below for forming the feminine.

The second group is words for female beings, which are feminine whatever their ending: umm (mother), bint (girl), ukht (sister) and women's names such as Maryam and Zaynab. In 28:7, the inspiration to the mother of Musa uses feminine verbs throughout, beginning with arḍiʿīhi, 'suckle him'. The third group simply has to be learned. Ones you will meet often in the Qur'an are shams (sun), arḍ (earth), nār (fire), nafs (soul), rīḥ (wind) and dār (home), along with most body parts that come in pairs, such as yad (hand), ʿayn (eye) and rijl (leg). ʿAyn can also mean a spring, as in ʿaynun jāriyah, 'a flowing spring' (88:12), where the adjective takes a ta marbuta to match.

Are there masculine words that end in ta marbuta?

Yes: a few Arabic words end in ta marbuta but are masculine, most often men's names such as Ḥamzah, Ṭalḥah and Muʿāwiyah. Their meaning decides their agreement, so you use the masculine word for 'this' with them. A few descriptive words with ta marbuta are used for men and women alike, such as ʿallāmah, 'a very learned person'.

The ta marbuta can also turn a collective noun into a single item. Naml means ants in general and namlah one ant; shajar is trees and shajarah one tree. The single form is grammatically feminine, which is why the ant in Surah an-Naml speaks with a feminine verb:

How do you make a word feminine in Arabic?

To make most Arabic adjectives and participles feminine, you add a ta marbuta to the masculine form: kabīr (big) becomes kabīrah and muʾmin (believer) becomes muʾminah. The Qur'an has both: rajulun muʾmin, 'a believing man' (40:28), and imraʾatan muʾminah, 'a believing woman' (33:50). A few common patterns form the feminine differently. These patterns are part of sarf, the study of word forms explained in our guide to sarf vs nahw, and each one is laid over a word's three-letter root.

One ayah shows several of these at once. When Musa (peace be upon him) is told to draw his hand to his side, the hand (yad, feminine without a sign) comes out with a feminine verb, takhruj, and a faʿlāʾ adjective, bayḍāʾ, and the miracle is called a sign with the fuʿlā form ukhrā, 'another'.

How does gender agreement work in Arabic?

Gender agreement in Arabic means that adjectives, verbs, pronouns and pointing words take a feminine form whenever the noun they refer to is feminine. In the address to the soul near the end of Surah al-Fajr, every word that can show gender does:

Adjectives

An adjective follows its noun in gender, and also in number, case and definiteness. In 14:24 a good word and a good tree are both feminine, so both adjectives take a ta marbuta: kalimatan ṭayyibatan ka-shajaratin ṭayyibah, 'a good word like a good tree'. Make the noun masculine and the ta disappears: rajulun ṭayyib, 'a good man'.

Verbs

A verb marks a feminine subject with a ت: a ت with sukun at the end of the past tense (qāla becomes qālat) and a ت at the start of the present tense (yajrī becomes tajrī, as in wa sh-shamsu tajrī, 'and the sun runs', 36:38). The feminine is required when a female subject comes straight after the verb, and when the verb refers back to a feminine noun already mentioned, as the sun in 36:38. With figurative feminines, and with plural words for groups of people such as al-aʿrāb (Bedouins) and niswah (women), Arabic allows both, which is why the Qur'an says qālati l-aʿrābu, 'the Bedouins say', with a feminine verb (49:14), and here a masculine verb with a feminine plural:

Pronouns, pointing words and plurals

Pronouns and pointing words have their own feminine forms: hiya (she) beside huwa (he), anti beside anta (you), hādhihi beside hādhā (this), and allatī beside alladhī (which, who). Compare hādhā l-Qurʾān, 'this Qur'an' (17:9), with this ayah about the Fire, where nār takes both feminine forms:

One rule surprises nearly every beginner: plurals of things that are not people are treated as feminine singular. That is why al-asmāʾ, a plural meaning 'the names', is described with the feminine singular al-ḥusnā in 7:180, 'the best names', and why you say al-kutubu jadīdah, 'the books are new', even though kitāb is masculine. Sound plurals show gender in their endings instead: al-muslimūn and al-muslimāt, the Muslim men and Muslim women of 33:35.

Gender is one of the first places where Arabic grammar starts to make the Qur'an readable, because the endings tell you who or what each word points to. If you would like someone to test you on real ayat and correct you as you go, you can find a Qur'an or Arabic teacher of your choice and bring the examples from this guide to your first lesson.