Almost everything on nouns whose gender contradicts their ending has to be memorised word by word. This page is the opposite: two groups of nouns whose gender you can predict, which makes them worth separating out. The catch is that one of the two generalisations is narrower than it is usually stated, and knowing exactly where it stops is most of the value.
The core paired parts
The body parts you meet first — the ones that come in twos and that Hebrew has had words for since the Bible — are feminine, and they take a dual plural in ־ַיִים instead of the ordinary ־ִים or ־וֹת.
| Singular | Dual | With an adjective | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| יָד yad | יָדַיִים yadáyim | יָדַיִים קָרוֹת yadáyim karót | hand |
| רֶגֶל régel | רַגְלַיִים ragláyim | רַגְלַיִים אֲרוּכּוֹת ragláyim arukót | leg, foot |
| עַיִן áyin | עֵינַיִים eináyim | עֵינַיִים כְּחוּלּוֹת eináyim kkhulót | eye |
| אוֹזֶן ózen | אוֹזְנַיִים oznáyim | אוֹזְנַיִים גְּדוֹלוֹת oznáyim gdolót | ear |
| שֵׁן shen | שִׁינַּיִים shináyim | שִׁינַּיִים לְבָנוֹת shináyim levanót | tooth |
| בֶּרֶךְ bérekh | בִּרְכַּיִים birkáyim | בִּרְכַּיִים חַלָּשׁוֹת birkáyim khalashót | knee |
| כָּתֵף katéf | כְּתֵפַיִים ktefáyim | כְּתֵפַיִים רְחָבוֹת ktefáyim rekhavót | shoulder |
Every one of them is unmarked in the singular — no ־ָה, no ־ֶת — so nothing on the page tells you they are feminine except the adjective. לֶחִי lekhí "cheek" and כַּף kaf "palm" belong here too. How the dual is built, and why time units use it as well, is on the dual; here the point is only the gender.
הידיים שלי קפואות, אפשר לסגור את החלון?
hayadáyim shelí kfu'ót, efshár lisgór et hakhalón?
My hands are frozen — can we shut the window?
הרגליים שלו ארוכות מדי לאוטובוס הזה.
haragláyim sheló arukót midái la'otóbus hazé
His legs are too long for this bus.
לתינוקת כבר יש שתי שיניים קטנות למטה.
latinokét kvar yesh shtei shináyim ktanót lemáta
The baby's already got two little teeth at the bottom. (שן is feminine, so the numeral is שתי, not שני)
האוזניים שלי אטומות מאז הטיסה.
ha'oznáyim shelí atumót me'áz hatisá
My ears have been blocked ever since the flight.
הכתפיים שלי תפוסות, ישבתי כל היום מול המחשב.
haktefáyim shelí tfusót, yashávti kol hayóm mul hamakhshév
My shoulders are seized up — I've been sitting in front of the computer all day.
Where the generalisation stops
"Paired means feminine" is a useful rule of thumb over the oldest and most basic vocabulary, and it is not a law of the language. Plenty of body parts come in twos and are masculine, and the dictionaries are unanimous about them: Milog tags מַרְפֵּק marpék "elbow", קַרְסוֹל karsól "ankle", אֲגוּדָל agudál "thumb", נָחִיר nakhír "nostril" and שָׁד shad "breast" all זכר. Their plurals then cut straight across the gender line instead of following it. שָׁדַיִים shadáyim, נְחִירַיִים nekhiráyim and קַרְסוּלַּיִים karsuláyim take the very same ־ַיִים dual as the feminine list above — and are masculine all the same — while מַרְפְּקִים marpekím and אֲגוּדָלִים agudalím take an ordinary ־ים. Hebrew Wikipedia's own article on the dual uses exactly that contrast, asking why some paired body parts pluralise normally and answering with מרפקים and not מרפקיים.
So the two facts are independent: the dual marks a pair, and it says nothing about gender.
So the honest statement is: the core list above is a closed class you can learn, and beyond it the gender of a body part is lexical like any other noun's.
The rest of the body splits both ways, and mostly masculine.
| Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|
| רֹאשׁ rosh head | בֶּטֶן béten stomach |
| גַּב gav back | אֶצְבַּע etsbá finger |
| אַף af nose | לָשׁוֹן lashón tongue |
| פֶּה pe mouth | רֵיאָה re'á lung |
| לֵב lev heart | כִּלְיָה kilyá kidney |
| מֵצַח métsakh forehead · גָּרוֹן garón throat |
Two of those feminines are worth a second look. רֵיאָה and כִּלְיָה do come in twos — and they are feminine — but their plurals are the ordinary רֵיאוֹת and כְּלָיוֹת, not duals. Being paired and taking a dual are two different facts about a noun, and only the core list above has both.
הלב שלו חזק, הרופא אמר שאין שום סיבה לדאוג.
halév sheló khazák, harofé amár she'éin shum sibá lid'óg
His heart is strong — the doctor said there's nothing at all to worry about.
הבטן שלי מקרקרת, לא אכלתי מהבוקר.
habéten shelí mekarkéret, lo akhálti mehabóker
My stomach is rumbling — I haven't eaten since this morning.
Cities and countries
The second class has no exceptions to warn you about. A place name takes feminine agreement whatever its shape — adjective, verb and pronoun alike. He.wiktionary tags תל אביב, ירושלים and חיפה נקבה, and the traditional explanation is that the name stands in for a feminine noun: an עִיר, an אֶרֶץ or a מְדִינָה.
תל אביב הישנה הרבה יותר יפה מהמגדלים החדשים.
tel avív hayeshaná harbé yotér yafá mehamigdalím hakhadashím
Old Tel Aviv is far nicer than the new towers. (הישנה and יפה are both feminine, agreeing with the city)
חיפה גדלה מהר מאוד בשנים האחרונות.
khéifa gadlá mahér me'ód bashaním ha'akharonót
Haifa has grown very fast in recent years. (the past-tense verb agrees too)
Two details are worth having now. First, the name itself takes no article — תל אביב, never התל אביב — but an adjective modifying it *does, because a proper noun is already definite: תל אביב היפה. Drop that article and you have not made a phrase, you have made a sentence: תל אביב יפה is Tel Aviv is beautiful. The whole article question is on proper nouns and the article.
Second, the same rule covers countries, including the ones whose names look plural: ארצות הברית takes a feminine singular verb. Their full treatment, with the list, is on country names.
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving the adjective masculine on a dual body part. The ־ַיִים ending does not look like either plural you were taught, so the adjective gets the masculine ־ִים by default.
❌ העיניים שלה כחולים בדיוק כמו של אבא שלה
Incorrect — עיניים is feminine, so the adjective is feminine plural: העיניים שלה כחולות בדיוק כמו של אבא שלה.
✅ העיניים שלה כחולות בדיוק כמו של אבא שלה.
ha'eináyim shelá kkhulót bediyúk kmo shel ába shelá
She's got blue eyes, exactly like her dad's.
2. The same thing on a verb. Agreement does not stop at the adjective, and a present-tense verb with a dual subject is feminine plural too.
❌ הברכיים שלי כואבים אחרי כל ריצה
Incorrect — ברכיים is feminine, so the verb is כואבות: הברכיים שלי כואבות אחרי כל ריצה.
✅ הברכיים שלי כואבות אחרי כל ריצה ארוכה.
habirkáyim shelí ko'avót akharéi kol ritsá aruká
My knees hurt after every long run.
3. Over-generalising to all body parts. This is the error the rule of thumb creates, and it is the reason the limits above matter.
❌ הראש שלי כואבת
Incorrect — ראש is masculine: הראש שלי כואב. 'Body part' is not a gender; only the core paired list is predictable, and מרפק, קרסול and אגודל are masculine even though they come in twos.
✅ הראש שלי כואב מאתמול, אולי זה מהמזגן.
harósh shelí ko'év me'etmól, ulái ze mehamazgán
I've had a headache since yesterday — maybe it's the air conditioning.
4. Masculine agreement on a city, because the name has no feminine ending. תל אביב, חיפה and אשדוד all end in consonants or in unhelpful vowels, and the default fires.
❌ תל אביב יקר מאוד בקיץ
Incorrect — a city name takes feminine agreement whatever its shape: תל אביב יקרה מאוד בקיץ.
✅ תל אביב יקרה מאוד בקיץ, אנחנו נוסעים לצפון.
tel avív yekará me'ód bakáyits, anákhnu nos'ím latsafón
Tel Aviv is very expensive in summer — we're going up north.
Key Takeaways
- The core paired body parts — יד, רגל, עין, אוזן, שן, ברך, כתף, plus לחי and כף — are feminine, unmarked in the singular, and take a dual in ־ַיִים.
- The rule of thumb stops there. מרפק, קרסול, אגודל, נחיר and שד are masculine and paired — Milog and he.wiktionary tag every one of them זכר — and three of them (שדיים, נחיריים, קרסוליים) take a dual anyway, which is how you know the dual is not a gender marker.
- The rest of the body is lexical and mostly masculine (ראש, גב, אף, פה, לב, מצח, גרון), with בטן, אצבע, לשון, ריאה and כליה feminine — and ריאה and כליה are paired without taking a dual, because being paired and taking a dual are two separate facts.
- Place names take feminine agreement — adjective, verb and pronoun. He.wiktionary tags תל אביב, ירושלים and חיפה נקבה.
- A place name takes no article, but an adjective modifying it does: תל אביב היפה is a phrase, תל אביב יפה is a sentence.
- Countries behave the same way, including plural-looking names: ארצות הברית takes a feminine singular verb.
Now practice Hebrew
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- The Dual (־ַיִם): ידיים, שבועיים, פעמייםA2 — Hebrew has a third number between singular and plural, and it is fully alive in everyday speech. It covers paired body parts, a closed set of paired objects, and the time units — where for exactly two the ordinary word is שעתיים or יומיים, and the numeral phrase שתי שעות is not wrong but roughly a hundred times rarer, and used for something else. The ending is not a general plural, cannot be coined, and says nothing about gender.
- Nouns Whose Gender Contradicts Their EndingB1 — The two defaults broken in both directions, as short lists you can actually memorise: לילה, שדה, מקרה, מעשה and מחנה are masculine despite their final ה, and אבן, דרך, ארץ, עיר, נפש, בטן and אצבע are feminine with no marker at all. Plus the handful of nouns the dictionaries themselves tag זכר ונקבה, and what that tag is really recording.
- Country Names in HebrewA1 — The twenty countries you will actually name, plus the three grammatical facts that govern all of them: a country name takes no article (ישראל, never הישראל), every country is feminine singular even when the name looks plural (ארצות הברית הודיעה), and most names are transliterations — except צרפת and ספרד, which are Iron Age towns reassigned to modern states.
- Idioms Built on יד, לב, עין and ראשB1 — Four small families of fixed phrases, each sourced: שם לב and the ל it must have, במו that never inflects while the noun after it does, מראית עין and the halachic principle quoted from Beitzah 9a, and ראש קטן and ראש גדול — slang in Hebrew Wiktionary, soldiers in Rosenthal's lexicon.