In short

Every Modern Hebrew noun is either masculine — זכר (zachar) — or feminine — נקבה (nekeva). There is no third, neuter category: a table is “he” and a bed is “she”. You can guess the gender from the ending most of the time: endings like ־ה (-a), ־ת (-t) and ־ית (-it) mark feminines, while a plain consonant ending marks the default masculine.

Gender is not decoration. It is a lexical fact stored with the word, and it silently controls everything that agrees with the noun later — adjectives, the present-tense verb, numbers, demonstratives. So the moment you learn a noun, learn its gender with it. A handful of common words break the ending rule, and those you simply memorize.

The rule

Two genders, no neuter. Every noun is either זכר (zachar, masculine) or נקבה (nekeva, feminine). English “it” has no Hebrew equivalent: an object is grammatically “he” or “she” depending on the noun. There is nothing neutral to fall back on, so each noun must land in one of the two boxes.

Gender is a property of the word, not something you compute. Because gender governs later agreement, getting it wrong makes the whole phrase wrong further down the line. You cannot recalculate it each time from meaning — a bed מיטה (mita) is feminine and a table שולחן (shulchan) is masculine for no real-world reason. Store the gender together with the noun, the way a dictionary marks it ז / נ.

Reliable feminine endings. In the singular, three endings almost always signal feminine:

• ־ה (-a): ילדה (yalda) ‘girl’, מיטה (mita) ‘bed’, שאלה (she’ela) ‘question’;
• ־ת (-t): רכבת (rakevet) ‘train’, דלת (delet) ‘door’;
• ־ית (-it): עברית (ivrit) ‘Hebrew’, מכונית (mechonit) ‘car’.

The related ending ־ות (-ut) is feminine too: חנות (chanut) ‘shop’.

The default is masculine. A noun that ends in a plain consonant, with no feminine ending, is almost always masculine: ילד (yeled) ‘boy’, שולחן (shulchan) ‘table’, ספר (sefer) ‘book’, כלב (kelev) ‘dog’. When nothing marks the word, assume masculine.

The traps run both ways. Two groups break the ending rule and must be memorized:

• Some nouns end in ־ה (or in an -a sound spelled ־א) but are masculine: לילה (layla) ‘night’, אבא (aba) ‘dad’, סבא (saba) ‘grandpa’, שדה (sade) ‘field’. Natural gender helps here — אבא and סבא name male beings, so they stay masculine whatever the ending.
• Some unmarked (consonant-ending) nouns are feminine: עיר (ir) ‘city’, יד (yad) ‘hand’, דרך (derech) ‘road’, ארץ (eretz) ‘land, country’, רגל (regel) ‘leg’. As a rule of thumb, paired body parts skew feminine: יד (yad) hand, רגל (regel) leg, עין (ayin) eye, אוזן (ozen) ear.

Do not over-generalize either way. “Every ־ה is feminine” is false (לילה, שדה), and “every unmarked noun is masculine” is false (עיר, יד). The endings are a strong first guess, not a guarantee — treat the trap words as exceptions you know by heart.

Forms & patterns

Endings and their gender (singular dictionary form):

The traps — words whose ending points the wrong way:

Examples

Common mistakes

• הלילה ארוכה -> הלילה ארוך (ha-layla aroch) - לילה ends in ־ה but is masculine, so the predicate is masculine.
• אבא טובה -> אבא טוב (aba tov) - אבא ends in an -a sound (spelled ־א) yet names a male, so it stays masculine.
• העיר גדול -> העיר גדולה (ha-ir gdola) - עיר has no feminine ending but is feminine; do not read “unmarked” as masculine.
• היד כואב -> היד כואבת (ha-yad koevet) - יד is feminine (a paired body part), so the verb is feminine.
• הדרך ארוך -> הדרך ארוכה (ha-derech aruka) - דרך is one of the unmarked feminines, not a masculine.
• הדלת סגור -> הדלת סגורה (ha-delet sgura) - the ־ת ending is feminine, so agreement is feminine.
• המכונית חדש -> המכונית חדשה (ha-mechonit chadasha) - ־ית is a feminine ending; treat מכונית as feminine.

Tips

• Read the last letter first: ־ה, ־ת and ־ית almost always mean feminine, and a bare consonant usually means masculine. That one glance settles most nouns.
• Remember there is no neuter: every noun is either הוא (hu, “he”) or היא (hi, “she”). If you catch yourself reaching for “it”, pick a gender instead.
• Learn gender with the word. Store it as “mita, fem.” and “shulchan, masc.”, never just the sound — the gender is what drives all later agreement.
• Natural gender overrides the ending for people: אבא (aba) and סבא (saba) end in an -a sound (spelled ־א) but name males, so they are masculine.
• Memorize the two trap sets as short lists: masculine -a words (לילה, אבא, סבא, שדה) and unmarked feminines (עיר, יד, דרך, ארץ, רגל).
• Use the body-part rule of thumb: paired parts lean feminine (יד, רגל, עין, אוזן) — handy when you meet a new one.
• When a dictionary or app tags a noun ז (זכר) or נ (נקבה), trust the tag over the ending; that label is there precisely for the exceptions.
• Fix a new noun’s gender by ear: say it inside a tiny phrase with a known adjective (בית גדול vs מיטה גדולה) so the agreement sound sticks.