خَرَجَ / يَخْرُجُ “go out, leave, emerge” is a strong Form-I verb from root خ-ر-ج. Its most important complement is من, which identifies the source left behind: خرج من البيت “left the house.” A destination can then follow with إلى, but the source remains the semantic center of the basic verb.
Two derived verbs are too frequent to leave as a footnote. Form II خَرَّجَ commonly means “graduate, train, produce” and has specialized scholarly uses such as tracing a report to its sources. Form IV أَخْرَجَ is the broad causative “take or bring out, remove, expel,” and also “produce/direct” a film. English leave, graduate, and take out therefore map onto three different Arabic stems.
Principal parts: the Form-I verb
| Item | Form | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Root and class | خ-ر-ج، Form I, strong | no weak radical or contraction |
| Perfect | خَرَجَ | he went out / left |
| Imperfect | يَخْرُجُ | he goes out / is leaving |
| Imperative | اُخْرُجْ | go out! (one male addressee) |
| Maṣdar | خُرُوجٌ | exit, departure, going out |
| Active participle | خَارِجٌ | going out; outside |
| Ordinary passive | not normally used | Form I is usually intransitive in this sense |
The initial alif of اُخْرُجْ is hamzat al-waṣl, so ordinary unvocalized spelling is اخرج. Do not add the hamza sign found in Form IV أَخْرِجْ “take out!” The active participle خارج also functions as a location word: هو خارج المكتب can mean “he is outside the office,” not only “he is leaving.” The Form-II overview and Form-IV overview show why the shadda and hamza create separate derived stems rather than mere pronunciation variants.
خرجت الممرضة من الغرفة بعد أن اطمأنت إلى حالة المريض
kharajati l-mumarriḍatu mina l-ghurfati baʿda ʾani ṭmaʾannat ʾilā ḥālati l-marīḍ
The nurse left the room after making sure that the patient was stable. (Formal neutral.)
خرج الدخان من النافذة قبل وصول فرق الإطفاء
kharaja d-dukhānu mina n-nāfidhati qabla wuṣūli firaqi l-ʾiṭfāʾ
Smoke came out of the window before the fire crews arrived. (Formal report.)
Source with من, destination with إلى
The normal source frame is خرج من + place. If the endpoint matters too, add إلى + destination: خرج من المكتب إلى الشارع. English often uses leave with a direct object, but contemporary MSA normally keeps من with خرج. For the transitive idea “leave something behind,” Arabic may instead use ترك.
خرج الموظفون من المبنى إلى الساحة بعد سماع الإنذار
kharaja l-muwaẓẓafūna mina l-mabnā ʾilā s-sāḥati baʿda samāʿi l-ʾindhār
The employees went out of the building into the courtyard after hearing the alarm. (Formal.)
خرج القطار من النفق واتجه نحو المحطة
kharaja l-qiṭāru mina n-nafaqi wattajaha naḥwa l-maḥaṭṭa
The train emerged from the tunnel and headed toward the station. (Formal neutral.)
Several extensions preserve the idea of crossing a boundary. خرج عن الموضوع means “departed from the subject,” خرج عن السيطرة “got out of control,” and خرج بنتيجة “came away with/reached a conclusion.” خرج على has specialized meanings such as “rebel against” and should not be substituted mechanically for English out on.
خرج overlaps with غادر “departed, left,” but they package the event differently. خرج من المبنى profiles movement from inside to outside; غادر المبنى treats the building as the place left behind and takes it directly. Scheduled transport commonly غادر القطار المحطة “the train departed the station,” whereas خرج القطار من المحطة creates a more spatial picture of the train moving out. This contrast helps English speakers who are tempted either to delete من after خرج or to add it after every Arabic verb translated as leave.
Time expressions combine naturally with the source frame. خرج صباحا can mean “went out/left in the morning,” while خرج من العمل عند الخامسة means “left work at five.” Context must distinguish “went outside” from “departed”; Arabic does not require a separate verb for those two English readings.
خرج النقاش عن الموضوع الأساسي في الدقائق الأخيرة
kharaja n-niqāshu ʿani l-mawḍūʿi l-ʾasāsiyyi fī d-daqāʾiqi l-ʾakhīra
The discussion strayed from the main topic in the final minutes. (Formal.)
خرج الفريق من التجربة بنتيجة واضحة
kharaja l-farīqu mina t-tajribati binatījatin wāḍiḥa
The team came away from the experiment with a clear conclusion. (Formal academic register.)
Form II خرّج: graduating, training, and producing
Form II has principal parts خَرَّجَ / يُخَرِّجُ / خَرِّجْ / تَخْرِيجٌ. It is transitive: an institution خرّج الطلاب “graduated the students,” while students themselves normally use Form V تَخَرَّجَ “graduate.” In educated formal usage, خرّج أجيالا من... means “produced/trained generations of...,” and تخريج الحديث is the scholarly tracing and documentation of a hadith's transmission sources. The latter is an (academic/religious-studies) term, not the everyday meaning of graduating students.
| Form | Principal parts | Core role |
|---|---|---|
| I | خَرَجَ / يَخْرُجُ / خُرُوجٌ | subject goes out |
| II | خَرَّجَ / يُخَرِّجُ / تَخْرِيجٌ | institution graduates/trains; scholar sources |
| IV | أَخْرَجَ / يُخْرِجُ / إِخْرَاجٌ | agent causes something to come out |
خرجت الجامعة هذا العام دفعة جديدة من المهندسين
kharrajati l-jāmiʿatu hādhā l-ʿāma dufʿatan jadīdatan mina l-muhandisīn
This year the university graduated a new cohort of engineers. (Formal educational register; Form II.)
خرج البرنامج عشرات الباحثين المتخصصين في الطاقة
kharraja l-barnāmaju ʿasharāti l-bāḥithīna l-mutakhaṣṣiṣīna fī ṭ-ṭāqa
The program trained and produced dozens of researchers specializing in energy. (Formal academic register; Form II.)
Because normal targets omit the shadda, خرجت الجامعة is visually ambiguous in isolation: it could begin kharajat al-jāmiʿa “the university went out” or kharrajati l-jāmiʿatu “the university graduated....” The object دفعة and the wider educational context resolve it. Vocalized reference forms must keep the shadda because it distinguishes two different verbs.
Form IV أخرج: take out, remove, expel, produce
Form IV أَخْرَجَ / يُخْرِجُ / أَخْرِجْ / إِخْرَاجٌ is the productive causative counterpart: someone causes a person or thing to cross outward. It takes a direct object and commonly adds من for the source. Its passive أُخْرِجَ / يُخْرَجُ is frequent in news, regulations, and narrative.
أخرج الفني البطارية من الجهاز قبل إصلاحه
ʾakhraja l-fanniyyu l-baṭṭāriyyata mina l-jihāzi qabla ʾiṣlāḥih
The technician removed the battery from the device before repairing it. (Formal neutral; Form IV.)
أخرج اللاعب من الملعب بعد حصوله على البطاقة الحمراء
ʾukhrija l-lāʿibu mina l-malʿabi baʿda ḥuṣūlihi ʿalā l-biṭāqati l-ḥamrāʾ
The player was sent off the field after receiving the red card. (Formal sports report; Form-IV passive.)
In media language, أخرج فيلما means “directed a film,” and مُخْرِج is a director. إخراج can mean removal, production, direction, or visual layout according to context. Form II and Form IV overlap around “produce,” but the lexical fields differ: universities تخرّج/خرّج cohorts, while directors أخرجوا films.
أخرجت المخرجة فيلما وثائقيا عن حياة الصيادين
ʾakhrajati l-mukhrijatu fīlman wathāʾiqiyyan ʿan ḥayāti ṣ-ṣayyādīn
The director made a documentary about the lives of fishermen. (Formal media register; Form IV.)
Mood forms and high-frequency bundles
Form I is morphologically regular: يخرجُ، لن يخرجَ، لم يخرجْ. The command is اخرج with hamzat al-waṣl; Form IV أخرج retains hamzat al-qaṭʿ in every position.
لم يخرج الوزير من الاجتماع بأي تصريح
lam yakhruji l-wazīru mina l-ijtimāʿi biʾayyi taṣrīḥ
The minister left the meeting without making any statement. (Formal news register.)
اخرج من التطبيق ثم سجل الدخول مرة أخرى
ukhruj mina t-taṭbīqi thumma sajjili d-dukhūla marratan ʾukhrā
Exit the application, then log in again. (Formal technical instruction to one man.)
Useful clusters include خرج من البيت/المكتب “left the house/office,” خرج إلى الشارع “went out into the street,” خرج عن السيطرة “got out of control,” خرج بنتيجة “reached/came away with a conclusion,” أخرج من الحقيبة “took out of the bag,” and تخرّج في الجامعة/من الكلية “graduated at the university/from the faculty.”
Common Mistakes
Treating the source as a direct object after Form I
❌ خرجت المكتب بعد السادسة
Incorrect in neutral MSA for ‘I left the office’—the source normally follows من.
✅ خرجت من المكتب بعد السادسة
kharajtu mina l-maktabi baʿda s-sādisa
I left the office after six.
Using intransitive خرج for causing someone to leave
❌ خرج الحارس الزائر من المبنى
Incorrect for ‘the guard removed the visitor’—as written, خرج makes the guard the one who left; use causative أخرج with a direct object.
✅ أخرج الحارس الزائر من المبنى
ʾakhraja l-ḥārisu z-zāʾira mina l-mabnā
The guard escorted the visitor out of the building.
Confusing leaving university with graduating
❌ خرجت من الجامعة عام ألفين وعشرين
Incorrect for the intended meaning ‘I graduated’—this only says that I left the university.
✅ تخرجت من الجامعة عام ألفين وعشرين
takharrajtu mina l-jāmiʿati ʿāma ʾalfayni waʿishrīn
I graduated from the university in 2020.
Key Takeaways
- Form I خَرَجَ / يَخْرُجُ / اُخْرُجْ / خُرُوجٌ means that the subject goes out; من marks the source.
- خَرَّجَ / يُخَرِّجُ / تَخْرِيجٌ is transitive and is used for graduating, training, producing, and specialized scholarly sourcing.
- أَخْرَجَ / يُخْرِجُ / إِخْرَاجٌ causes an object to come out; its passive أُخْرِجَ is frequent even though the unvocalized perfect looks like the active.
- Hamza distinguishes the written commands اخرج “go out!” and أخرج “take out!”
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- دخل — enter with or without إلى depending on style and meaningB1 — Use دخل as a direct verb of entry and distinguish destination إلى, involvement في, and entering upon someone with على.
- وصل — arriveB1 — Use وصل for arriving, reaching, and connecting while controlling its assimilated stem, transitivity, and Form II delivery contrast.
- كان — beA2 — Reference the hollow verb كان across its full paradigm, copular and existential senses, predicate case, conditionals, and high-frequency collocations.