The unvocalized spelling لبس hides two Form-I verbs. لَبِسَ — يَلْبَسُ means “wear, put on,” whereas لَبَسَ — يَلْبِسُ means “mix up, obscure, confuse.” Their consonants are identical, but the vowels of both perfect and imperfect switch. That is not optional variation: it distinguishes lexical meanings.
The Form-I overview explains why a verb's perfect and imperfect vowel classes must be learned as a pair.
For clothing, the wearer is the subject and the garment is a direct object: لبست مريم المعطف “Maryam put on the coat.” English can say both wear and put on; perfect لَبِسَ often describes putting something on or wearing it in a past situation, while imperfect يَلْبَسُ describes either a current/habitual state or the act, as context decides.
Lookup card: the two vowel classes
Both verbs have the sound root ل-ب-س, Form I. Since written Arabic normally omits short vowels, readers must recover the intended class from syntax and meaning.
| Function | Wear | Confuse / obscure |
|---|---|---|
| perfect | لَبِسَ | لَبَسَ |
| imperfect | يَلْبَسُ | يَلْبِسُ |
| imperative | اِلْبَسْ | اِلْبِسْ |
| maṣdar | لُبْسٌ؛ لِبَاسٌ | لَبْسٌ |
| active participle | لَابِسٌ | لَابِسٌ, context-dependent |
| passive participle | مَلْبُوسٌ | مَلْبُوسٌ, uncommon in this sense |
| passive | لُبِسَ — يُلْبَسُ | لُبِسَ — يُلْبَسُ, context-dependent |
The imperative difference is especially easy to miss. “Wear!” is اِلْبَسْ with fatḥa on ب, because it comes from يَلْبَسُ. “Confuse!” would be اِلْبِسْ with kasra, though that command is rarely useful outside rhetorical or quoted contexts. Neither begins with written أ: Form-I imperatives use hamzat al-waṣl.
لبس سامر بدلة داكنة في حفل التخرج.
labisa sāmirun badlatan dākinatan fī ḥafli t-takharruj.
Samer wore a dark suit at the graduation ceremony. (Formal neutral.)
يلبس الطبيب قفازات جديدة قبل كل فحص.
yalbasu ṭ-ṭabību quffāzātin jadīdatan qabla kulli faḥṣ.
The doctor puts on new gloves before every examination. (Formal neutral.)
Wearing takes a direct object
The clothing, accessory, or wearable device follows لبس directly. Do not insert بـ merely because English can describe someone “in” a coat. بالقميص can describe appearance in a verbless or participial phrase, but it is not the object pattern of finite لبس.
لبست هدى معطفها وغادرت قبل بدء المطر.
labisat hudā miʿṭafahā wa-ghādarat qabla badʾi l-maṭar.
Huda put on her coat and left before the rain began. (Formal neutral.)
يلبس أبي نظارة للقراءة فقط.
yalbasu ʾabī naẓẓāratan lil-qirāʾati faqaṭ.
My father wears glasses only for reading. (Formal neutral.)
ماذا ستلبسين في المقابلة غدا؟
mādhā sa-talbasīna fī l-muqābalati ghadan?
What will you wear to the interview tomorrow? (Formal neutral; addressed to one woman.)
اِرْتَدَى — يَرْتَدِي is a common formal synonym for “wear, put on.” It is especially frequent in news and official descriptions: يرتدي الزي الرسمي. لبس is fully standard too and often feels more basic and concrete. Neither is restricted to casual speech.
The direct object can be jewelry and wearable equipment as well as clothing: لبس خاتمًا، نظارةً، قفازاتٍ، سماعةً. For perfume, cosmetics, or topical medicine, contemporary MSA normally chooses وضع rather than extending لبس from English wear.
وضعت ندى العطر، ثم لبست وشاحها قبل الخروج.
waḍaʿat nadā l-ʿiṭra, thumma labisat wishāḥahā qabla l-khurūj.
Nada put on perfume, then put on her scarf before going out. (Formal neutral.)
Dress yourself versus dress someone
Form I makes the wearer the subject. To make someone else wear something, formal MSA uses causative Form IV أَلْبَسَ شخصًا ثوبًا “dress someone in a garment,” with two objects. Form II لَبَّسَ also exists, but it has additional lexical senses and is not a reason to import dialect conjugations into formal prose.
ألبست الأم طفلها معطفا سميكا قبل أن يخرجا.
ʾalbasati l-ʾummu ṭiflahā miʿṭafan samīkan qabla ʾan yakhrujā.
The mother dressed her child in a thick coat before they went out. (Formal neutral; causative Form IV.)
لبس الطفل معطفه بنفسه هذه المرة.
labisa ṭ-ṭiflu miʿṭafahu binafsihi hādhihi l-marra.
The child put on his coat by himself this time. (Formal neutral; Form I.)
English uses dress both transitively and intransitively. Arabic marks the causative change in the stem: لَبِسَ الطفلُ المعطفَ versus أَلْبَسَت الأمُّ الطفلَ المعطفَ.
Mood and command forms
This is a sound verb, so mood changes the ending without deleting a root consonant: indicative يَلْبَسُ, subjunctive لن يَلْبَسَ, jussive لم يَلْبَسْ. The masculine-singular imperative اِلْبَسْ is formed from the jussive stem and takes initial i-.
لن يلبس الموظفون الزي الجديد قبل الشهر المقبل.
lan yalbasa l-muwaẓẓafūna z-ziyya l-jadīda qabla sh-shahri l-muqbil.
The employees will not wear the new uniform before next month. (Formal.)
البس حذاء مريحا لأننا سنمشي طويلا.
ilbas ḥidhāʾan murīḥan liʾannanā sa-namshī ṭawīlan.
Wear comfortable shoes because we will be walking for a long time. (Formal neutral.)
لا تلبس هذه السترة في المختبر لأنها سريعة الاشتعال.
lā talbas hādhihi s-sutrata fī l-mukhtabari liʾannahā sarīʿatu l-ishtiʿāl.
Do not wear this jacket in the laboratory because it is highly flammable. (Formal instruction.)
The active participle لابس is grammatical, but finite يلبس or يرتدي is generally clearer in polished formal prose. Several dialects rely heavily on لابس for a present state; label that as dialectal if teaching it, rather than presenting it as the only MSA present construction.
لَبَسَ — يَلْبِسُ: confuse or obscure
The second Form-I vowel class is لَبَسَ الأمرَ على شخص: an agent mixed up or obscured a matter for someone. Another frequent construction is لَبَسَ الحقَّ بالباطل “mixed truth with falsehood,” which is (formal / elevated) and has strong Classical and Quranic associations. In ordinary contemporary prose, intransitive Form VIII اِلْتَبَسَ الأمرُ على شخص “the matter became confused to someone” is often more natural when no deliberate agent is named.
لبس المتحدث الحقائق بالشائعات حتى ضاع أصل الخبر.
labasa l-mutaḥaddithu l-ḥaqāʾiqa bish-shāʾiʿāti ḥattā ḍāʿa ʾaṣlu l-khabar.
The speaker mixed the facts with rumors until the source of the story was lost. (Formal/elevated.)
لبس المحرر الأمر على القراء بعنوان مضلل.
labasa l-muḥarriru l-ʾamra ʿalā l-qurrāʾi biʿunwānin muḍallil.
The editor obscured the matter for readers with a misleading headline. (Formal.)
التبس علي رقم الغرفة بسبب الخط الصغير.
iltabasa ʿalayya raqmu l-ghurfati bisababi l-khaṭṭi ṣ-ṣaghīr.
I became confused about the room number because of the small print. (Formal neutral; Form VIII.)
Passive and high-frequency collocations
Passive لُبِسَ — يُلْبَسُ is morphologically regular. In clothing contexts, however, a passive such as لُبِسَ المعطف is possible but less informative than an active clause because garments are inherently things worn. The passive appears when the wearer is deliberately backgrounded.
يلبس هذا الزي في المناسبات الرسمية فقط.
yulbasu hādhā z-ziyyu fī l-munāsabāti r-rasmiyyati faqaṭ.
This outfit is worn only on formal occasions. (Formal passive.)
| Collocation | Meaning and register |
|---|---|
| لَبِسَ زِيًّا رَسْمِيًّا | wear formal dress / a uniform (neutral) |
| لَبِسَ نَظَّارَةً | wear glasses (neutral) |
| لَبِسَ قُفَّازَاتٍ | put on / wear gloves (neutral) |
| لَبِسَ السَّوَادَ | wear black, often in mourning (formal/cultural context) |
| لَبَسَ الْأَمْرَ عَلَيْهِ | obscure the matter for him (formal) |
| لَبَسَ الْحَقَّ بِالْبَاطِلِ | mix truth with falsehood (elevated/Classical resonance) |
| اِلْتَبَسَ الْأَمْرُ عَلَيْهِ | the matter was unclear to him (neutral formal, Form VIII) |
Common Mistakes
Reading the clothing verb with the “confuse” vowels
❌ لبس المدير بدلة رمادية.
labasa l-mudīru badlatan ramādiyya
Incorrect reading for ‘the director wore’: clothing requires لَبِسَ labisa. The unvocalized Arabic sentence itself is correctly spelled.
✅ لبس المدير بدلة رمادية.
labisa l-mudīru badlatan ramādiyya.
The director wore a gray suit.
Adding بـ before the garment
❌ لبس الضيف بالمعطف داخل القاعة.
Incorrect for the finite verb ‘wore the coat’—the garment is a direct object, not a بـ phrase.
✅ لبس الضيف المعطف داخل القاعة.
labisa ḍ-ḍayfu l-miʿṭafa dākhila l-qāʿa.
The guest wore the coat inside the hall.
Using Form I when the subject dresses someone else
❌ لبست الأم طفلها معطفا.
Incorrect for ‘the mother dressed her child’—Form-I لبس makes the wearer the subject; use causative Form IV ألبس.
✅ ألبست الأم طفلها معطفا.
ʾalbasati l-ʾummu ṭiflahā miʿṭafan.
The mother put a coat on her child.
Writing hamzat al-qaṭʿ on the self-directed command
❌ ألبس قفازاتك قبل أن تبدأ.
Incorrect if commanding one man to put on his own gloves: أَلْبِسْ is Form IV and calls for an object meaning ‘dress someone.’ Use Form-I اِلبس. The written form ألبس is valid in its causative sense.
✅ البس قفازاتك قبل أن تبدأ.
ilbas quffāzātika qabla ʾan tabdaʾ.
Put on your gloves before you begin.
Key Takeaways
- لَبِسَ — يَلْبَسُ — اِلْبَسْ means “wear / put on,” while لَبَسَ — يَلْبِسُ means “confuse / obscure.”
- The garment is a direct object: لبس المعطف, not a prepositional complement.
- Form I makes the wearer the subject; Form IV ألبس شخصًا ثوبًا means “dress someone in a garment.”
- التبس الأمر على شخص is the common intransitive way to say that a matter was unclear to someone.
- Unvocalized spelling hides the crucial vowel-class difference, so learn principal parts with meaning.
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