اشترى — buy as a defective Form VIII verb | Arabic (Modern Standard) Grammar

اِشْتَرَى “buy, purchase” is a Form-VIII verb from root ش-ر-ي. Its added ت is stable, but its final weak radical changes shape: the perfect ends in ى, the indicative imperfect in ي, and the singular jussive and masculine-singular imperative lose that final letter altogether. The practical bundle is اِشْتَرَى — يَشْتَرِي — لَمْ يَشْتَرِ — اِشْتَرِ.

The verb is normally transitive. The item bought is a direct object, the seller or source follows من, and the price commonly follows بـ. Keeping those roles separate prevents English “buy something from someone for a price” from producing an improvised Arabic frame. Compare the regular derivational structure on the Form-VIII overview and the final-letter changes on the defective-verb overview.

Lookup card and principal parts

Item	Form	Use
root and Form	ش-ر-ي، Form VIII	final-weak (defective)
perfect	اِشْتَرَى	he bought
imperfect indicative	يَشْتَرِي	he buys / is buying
imperative, 2 m.sg.	اِشْتَرِ	buy!
Form-VIII maṣdar	اِشْتِرَاءٌ	buying, purchasing
active participle	مُشْتَرٍ؛ الْمُشْتَرِي	buyer, purchaser
passive participle	مُشْتَرًى	purchased
passive	اُشْتُرِيَ — يُشْتَرَى	was bought — is bought

The shorter noun شِرَاء is extremely frequent in contemporary compounds such as سعر الشراء “purchase price” and قرار الشراء “purchasing decision.” The transparently Form-VIII maṣdar is اشتراء. Both belong to the modern lexical field, but شراء is often the idiomatic choice for the commercial activity.

اشترت الشركة أجهزة جديدة من مورد محلي

ishtarati sh-sharikatu ʾajhizatan jadīdatan min muwarridin maḥallī

The company bought new equipment from a local supplier. (Formal commercial register.)

يشتري كثير من القراء الكتب الإلكترونية الآن

yashtarī kathīrun mina l-qurrāʾi l-kutuba l-ʾiliktrūniyyata l-ʾān

Many readers now buy electronic books. (Formal neutral.)

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Store four anchors: اشترى، يشتري، لم يشترِ، اشترِ. They reveal the entire final-weak alternation more reliably than trying to reconstruct each form from the English verb “buy.”

The final-weak paradigm

In the perfect, unsuffixed اشترى ends in alif maqṣūra. Yāʾ appears before consonant-initial suffixes: اشتريت، اشترينا، اشترين. The masculine plural has the -aw ending اِشْتَرَوْا ishtaraw, distinct in pronunciation from command اِشْتَرُوا ishtarū even though both are written اشتروا without vowels.

Environment	Form	Stem behavior
هو / هي	اِشْتَرَى / اِشْتَرَتْ	ى in unsuffixed masculine; absent before تْ
أنا / نحن	اِشْتَرَيْتُ / اِشْتَرَيْنَا	yāʾ surfaces before suffix
هم / هنَّ	اِشْتَرَوْا / اِشْتَرَيْنَ	distinct masculine and feminine stems
indicative	يَشْتَرِي	final yāʾ retained
subjunctive	لَنْ يَشْتَرِيَ	fatḥa follows final yāʾ
jussive	لَمْ يَشْتَرِ	final yāʾ deleted

The five-verb forms follow their own ending rule: indicative يشترون، تشترين but subjunctive/jussive لن يشتروا، لم تشترِي with deletion of ن. In unvocalized writing, feminine لم تشتري retains yāʾ because it belongs to the feminine ending; masculine لم يشتر does not.

لن يشتري المدير النظام قبل انتهاء الاختبار

lan yashtariya l-mudīru n-niẓāma qabla ntihāʾi l-ikhtibār

The director will not buy the system before testing is complete. (Formal; subjunctive after لن.)

لم يشتر أخي السيارة لأنها كانت غالية

lam yashtari ʾakhī s-sayyārata liʾannahā kānat ghāliya

My brother did not buy the car because it was expensive. (Formal neutral; masculine singular jussive.)

Commands and hamzat al-waṣl

The commands are اشترِ، اشتري، اشتريا، اشتروا، اشترين. Initial ا carries hamzat al-waṣl: it is heard as i- at the beginning of speech but elides after a preceding word. The masculine singular loses the final root yāʾ, while feminine اشتري retains a yāʾ as part of its addressee ending.

اشتر ما تحتاج إليه، واحتفظ بالفاتورة

ishtari mā taḥtāju ʾilayhi, wa-ḥtafiẓ bil-fātūra

Buy what you need, and keep the receipt. (Formal command to one man.)

قارنوا الأسعار ثم اشتروا من المتجر الموثوق

qārinū l-ʾasʿāra thumma shtarū mina l-matjari l-mawthūq

Compare the prices, then buy from the reliable store. (Formal instruction to a male or mixed group.)

What was bought, from whom, and for how much

The item: direct object

The acquired item is a direct object: اشترى كتابا، اشترى منزلا، اشترى تذكرة. An attached object pronoun works the same way: اشتريته “I bought it,” اشتريناها “we bought it.”

اشترينا التذاكر عبر الموقع الرسمي

ishtaraynā t-tadhākira ʿabra l-mawqiʿi r-rasmī

We bought the tickets through the official website. (Formal neutral.)

The seller or source: من

The seller, shop, or source follows من. This phrase remains distinct from a beneficiary introduced by لـ.

اشترت المكتبة المخطوطة من جامع خاص

ishtarati l-maktabatu l-makhṭūṭata min jāmiʿin khāṣṣ

The library bought the manuscript from a private collector. (Formal.)

Price, means, and beneficiary

Price commonly follows بـ: اشتراه بمئة دينار “bought it for one hundred dinars.” Payment method may also take بـ, as in بالبطاقة; context distinguishes the price from the instrument. A beneficiary follows لـ: اشترى هدية لأخته “bought a gift for his sister.”

اشتريت الحاسوب بألف دولار ودفعت بالبطاقة

ishtaraytu l-ḥāsūba biʾalfi dūlārin wa-dafaʿtu bil-biṭāqa

I bought the computer for one thousand dollars and paid by card. (Formal neutral.)

اشترى سامر لوالدته هدية من المعرض

ishtarā sāmirun liwālidatihi hadiyyatan mina l-maʿriḍ

Samer bought his mother a gift from the exhibition. (Formal neutral.)

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Use a role map: اشترى الشيءَ (item), من البائع (seller/source), بثمن (price), and لشخص (beneficiary). Several phrases may occur together because each answers a different question.

Passive, participles, and commercial collocations

The passive is اُشْتُرِيَ / يُشْتَرَى. It is frequent in formal accounts when the purchase matters more than the purchaser. Unvocalized اشتري is genuinely ambiguous between passive perfect اُشْتُرِيَ ushturiya “was bought” and the feminine-singular command اِشْتَرِي ishtarī “buy!”; syntax and context identify the reading. Active perfect اِشْتَرَى has final ى instead.

اشتري المبنى في مزاد علني العام الماضي

ushturiya l-mabnā fī mazādin ʿalaniyyin l-ʿāma l-māḍiya

The building was bought at a public auction last year. (Formal passive.)

The indefinite active participle loses yāʾ in nominative and genitive مُشْتَرٍ; it returns with the article or in the accusative: المشتري، مشتريا. مُشْتَرًى is the passive participle “purchased,” though attributive السلع المشتراة commonly uses its feminine plural agreement with the non-human plural السلع.

يحق للمشتري إعادة السلع المشتراة خلال أسبوع

yaḥiqqu lil-mushtarī ʾiʿādatu s-silaʿi l-mushtarāti khilāla ʾusbūʿ

The buyer has the right to return purchased goods within one week. (Formal commercial/legal register.)

Frequent clusters include قرار الشراء “purchase decision,” سعر الشراء “purchase price,” قوة شرائية “purchasing power,” اشترى نقدا “bought for cash,” اشترى بالتقسيط “bought on installments,” and اشترى عبر الإنترنت “bought online.”

Common Mistakes

Writing the perfect with ordinary alif

❌ اشترا المدير حاسوبا جديدا

Incorrect spelling—the unsuffixed perfect ends in alif maqṣūra: اشترى.

✅ اشترى المدير حاسوبا جديدا

ishtarā l-mudīru ḥāsūban jadīdā

The director bought a new computer.

Keeping final yāʾ in the masculine singular jussive

❌ لم يشتري أخي السيارة

Incorrect in careful MSA for a masculine singular subject—the jussive deletes the final yāʾ.

✅ لم يشتر أخي السيارة

lam yashtari ʾakhī s-sayyāra

My brother did not buy the car.

Writing hamzat al-qaṭʿ on the command

❌ إشتر تذكرة قبل السفر

Incorrect standard spelling—Form VIII begins with hamzat al-waṣl and is written اشتر.

✅ اشتر تذكرة قبل السفر

ishtari tadhkiratan qabla s-safar

Buy a ticket before traveling.

Omitting من before the seller

❌ اشتريت المتجر هذا الهاتف

Incorrect for ‘I bought this phone from the store’—the seller or source follows من.

✅ اشتريت هذا الهاتف من المتجر

ishtaraytu hādhā l-hātifa mina l-matjar

I bought this phone from the store.

Key Takeaways

اشترى is a final-weak Form-VIII verb from ش-ر-ي.
Yāʾ surfaces in يشتري، اشتريت but disappears in masculine لم يشترِ، اشترِ.
The purchased item is direct; من marks the seller, بـ the price or method, and لـ a beneficiary.
Passive اُشْتُرِيَ — يُشْتَرَى is common in formal purchase accounts.
Distinguish Form-VIII maṣdar اشتراء from the highly frequent commercial noun شراء.

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