Nouns and Gender

All nouns in Pashto are either masculine or feminine. Thankfully, you can pretty much always tell the gender of a word by its ending.

Gender by Ending

Masculine words end in:

• a consonant
• 'y' and 'w' sounds such as:
  • وی - ooy or ای - aay
  • ی - aw
• ی - ay
• ـه - u
• و - oo

Feminine words end in:

• all the other vowels/dipthongs
  • ا - aa
  • ي - ee
  • و - o
  • ۍ - uy
  • ـه - a
  • ـه - i
  • ـه - U

A couple of other things to watch out for:

• Loanwords ending in و - oo such as اردو - oordóo (army) can be either masculine.
• The word for water اوبه - oobú is an exception, as it is feminine plural.

Exceptions

Feminine words that lost their ـه - a

Some feminine words have had their ـه - a's on the end chopped off. This makes them look like masculine nouns, but actually they do behave (and get inflected) just like other feminine nouns. For example, the word ورځ - wradz (day) ends in a consanant, but it is feminine, and it inflects just like any other feminine word ending with an ـه - a, ie. ورځې - wradze (days - plural).

Here are some other feminine words that have lost their ـه - a ending:

• لار - laar (road)
• ورځ - wradz (day)
• میاشت - myaasht (month)
• غېږ - gheG (bosom)
• څنګل - tsangul (elbow)
• بړستن - bRastun (blanket)
• ږمنځ - Gmundz (comb)
• ستن - stun (needle)
• لمن - lamun (skirt)
• څرمن - tsarmún (leather)
• توشک - toshák (cushion)
• کنځل - kundzul (swear word)
• لوېشت - lwesht (span)
• منګل - mangúl (claw)
• ورېځ - wurédz (cloud)

Note that some words can be said with or without an ـه - a on the end. For instance for the word "road/way" you will hear people saying both لار - laar and لاره - laara.

Words for people

Some words are used to describe people who obviously have a gender and they totally break or ignore the rules we saw above. For example: