Nominative: Forms | Croatian Grammar

The nominative (nominativ) is the case you already know without knowing it: it is the form printed in every dictionary, the form you learn each noun in, and the form a noun takes when it is the subject of a sentence. Before you touch a single oblique case, you need to be able to read off the nominative endings at sight, because every other case is built by swapping that ending for another. This page lays out those endings across all three genders and both numbers — nothing more, nothing less.

The nominative is the dictionary form

When you look up stol ("table"), žena ("woman") or more ("sea"), the headword you find is the nominative singular. This is not a coincidence of lexicography — it reflects the fact that the nominative is the "default" shape of the noun, the one that carries no extra grammatical job beyond naming the thing. Every conjugation table, every declension paradigm, starts from this form.

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If you can say what a word means, you already know its nominative singular — that is the form you memorised. The work of learning cases is learning what to put in place of the nominative ending, not learning a new word.

Singular endings

The nominative singular ending is the single best clue to a noun's gender. Read off the final sound and you can usually name the gender on the spot:

Gender	Ending	Examples
Masculine	consonant (no vowel)	stol (table), prijatelj (friend), grad (city)
Neuter	-o or -e	selo (village), more (sea), pismo (letter)
Feminine (-a type)	-a	žena (woman), knjiga (book), voda (water)
Feminine (i-type)	consonant	noć (night), stvar (thing), ljubav (love)

Notice the one genuine trap in this table: the feminine i-type ends in a consonant, exactly like a masculine noun. Noć looks masculine but is feminine through and through. There is no way to hear this from the ending — you must learn each such noun as feminine when you meet it. (The full picture of why these exist is on grammatical gender.)

Prijatelj dolazi sutra.

My friend is coming tomorrow. — masculine subject 'prijatelj' (consonant ending).

Selo je malo i tiho.

The village is small and quiet. — neuter subject 'selo' (-o).

Žena s kraja ulice ima psa.

The woman from the end of the street has a dog. — feminine -a subject 'žena'.

Noć je bila duga.

The night was long. — i-type feminine 'noć'; the past participle 'bila' confirms it is feminine, not masculine.

Plural endings

In the plural the gender signal moves to a new set of endings. These are the nominative plural forms you use for "the X's are…" type sentences:

Gender	Ending	Singular → Plural
Masculine	-i	stol → stolovi, prijatelj → prijatelji, grad → gradovi
Neuter	-a	selo → sela, more → mora, pismo → pisma
Feminine (-a type)	-e	žena → žene, knjiga → knjige, voda → vode
Feminine (i-type)	-i	noć → noći, stvar → stvari, ljubav → ljubavi

Two things deserve a flag. First, many one-syllable masculine nouns insert -ov- (or -ev- after soft consonants) before the plural -i: stol → stolovi, grad → gradovi, muž → muževi. This "long plural" is the norm for short masculines, not an exception, and it is covered in detail on the masculine declension paradigm. Second, the neuter plural -a is the same vowel as the feminine -a singular — so sela ("villages") and žena ("woman") share a letter but are utterly different forms. Context and agreement keep them apart.

Stolovi su preteški za nositi.

The tables are too heavy to carry. — masculine plural 'stolovi' with the -ov- insert.

Prijatelji uvijek pomažu.

Friends always help. — masculine plural 'prijatelji' (no insert; the stem ends in soft -lj).

Sela oko Splita su prazna ljeti.

The villages around Split are empty in summer. — neuter plural 'sela'.

Žene rade i kod kuće i na poslu.

Women work both at home and at the job. — feminine -a plural 'žene'.

Noći su sada kraće.

The nights are shorter now. — i-type feminine plural 'noći' (same -i as the singular oblique forms).

The nominative marks the subject

Mechanically, the reason you reach for the nominative is to mark the subject — the doer of the verb. The verb then agrees with that subject in person and number, and (in the past tense) in gender. Watch the agreement track the subject across these three:

Dijete spava.

The child is sleeping. — singular neuter subject 'dijete', singular verb 'spava'.

Studenti čekaju ispred dvorane.

The students are waiting in front of the hall. — plural subject 'studenti', plural verb 'čekaju'.

Knjiga je pala sa stola.

The book fell off the table. — feminine subject 'knjiga' drives the feminine past participle 'pala'.

The predicate noun stays nominative

Here is the point that separates Croatian from some of its Slavic cousins. After the verb biti ("to be"), the predicate noun — the thing you say the subject is — also takes the nominative, not a special "predicate case":

On je liječnik.

He is a doctor. — predicate noun 'liječnik' in the nominative, identical to the subject form.

Ana je studentica.

Ana is a student. — predicate noun 'studentica', nominative.

This will feel natural to an English speaker — "He is a doctor," not "He is a doctor-ish-case." But learners coming from Russian tend to overthink it, because Russian can put a predicate noun in the instrumental, especially in the past tense (its equivalent of "he was a doctor" marks doctor with an instrumental ending). Croatian has no such option for plain biti: the predicate noun is simply nominative in every tense. Say On je student and On je bio student — student stays nominative in both. (The fuller logic of subject vs predicate is on nominative uses, and the verb itself on biti — copula and existence.)

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Two nouns flanking je ("is") are both nominative: Moj brat je inženjer — subject and predicate match. There is no Croatian equivalent of the Russian instrumental predicate; do not invent one.

Common Mistakes

❌ Noć je bio dug.

Incorrect — 'noć' is an i-type FEMININE, so the participle and adjective must be feminine: 'bila', 'duga'.

✅ Noć je bila duga.

The night was long. — feminine agreement on a consonant-final feminine.

❌ Stoli su u kuhinji.

Incorrect — short masculines take the -ov- plural: the nominative plural of 'stol' is 'stolovi', not 'stoli'.

✅ Stolovi su u kuhinji.

The tables are in the kitchen. — masculine long plural 'stolovi'.

❌ On je bio liječnikom.

Incorrect — Croatian keeps the predicate noun NOMINATIVE after biti; the instrumental 'liječnikom' is a Russian-style construction that Croatian does not use here.

✅ On je bio liječnik.

He was a doctor. — nominative predicate noun in all tenses.

❌ Sele oko grada su lijepe.

Incorrect — the neuter plural of 'selo' is 'sela', and neuter agreement gives 'lijepa', not the feminine pattern.

✅ Sela oko grada su lijepa.

The villages around the city are beautiful. — neuter plural 'sela', neuter adjective 'lijepa'.

Key Takeaways

The nominative is the dictionary/citation form and the case of the subject.
Singular endings: masculine = consonant (stol), neuter = -o/-e (selo, more), feminine -a type = -a (žena), feminine i-type = consonant (noć, but still feminine).
Plural endings: masculine -i, often with -ov-/-ev- (stolovi); neuter -a (sela); feminine -a type -e (žene); feminine i-type -i (noći).
The predicate noun after biti is nominative in every tense (On je / je bio student) — Croatian has no instrumental-predicate option.

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