Take לָרֶדֶת "go down" and לָשֶׁבֶת "sit" into hif'il and you get לְהוֹרִיד "take down" and לְהוֹשִׁיב "seat someone". The yod that starts the root has become a long o, written with a vav, and it stays that way through every single form. This is the tidiest of the weak classes: one change, no exceptions inside the paradigm, and — unusually for hif'il — a causative relation to the pa'al partner that genuinely holds wherever there is a pa'al partner to relate to.
The yod becomes an o
| Root | pa'al | hif'il | The relation |
|---|---|---|---|
| י־ר־ד | לָרֶדֶת larédet go down | לְהוֹרִידlehoríd | make go down · take down, lower |
| י־שׁ־ב | לָשֶׁבֶת lashévet sit | לְהוֹשִׁיבlehoshív | make sit · seat someone |
| י־צ־א | לָצֵאת latsét go out | לְהוֹצִיאlehotsí | make go out · take out, spend |
| י־ד־ע | לָדַעַת ladá'at know | לְהוֹדִיעַlehodía | make know · inform, announce |
| י־ל־ד | לָלֶדֶת lalédet give birth | לְהוֹלִידleholíd | make be born · beget (literary) |
That fourth row is the one to hold on to. "Inform" is literally "cause to know" — הוֹדִיעַ from י־ד־ע — and once you see it, the verb stops being an arbitrary vocabulary item. The same logic sits inside הוֹרִיד and הוֹשִׁיב. It is a real pattern, not a mnemonic dressed up as one, and this class is where the causative story is at its most reliable.
תוריד את זה מהאתר, זה כבר לא נכון.
toríd et ze meha'atár, ze kvar lo nakhón
Take that off the site — it isn't accurate any more. (to a man)
הודיעו לנו רק אתמול שהטיסה בוטלה.
hodí'u lánu rak etmól shehatisá butlá
They only told us yesterday that the flight was cancelled.
הוציאו אותו מהקבוצה אחרי שני משחקים.
hotsí'u otó mehakvutsá akharéi shnei miskhakím
They dropped him from the squad after two games.
Why an o, of all things
The first radical of these roots was ו in Proto-Semitic, and Hebrew turned every word-initial w into y. Word-initial is the operative phrase: in hif'il the root's first letter is not word-initial — the prefix הִ־ / מַ־ / יַ־ stands in front of it — so the original ו was never converted, and it then contracted with the prefix vowel into a long o. The vav you see in הוֹרִיד is not a spelling device. It is the root's actual first letter, back in its original form.
Two consequences worth knowing. The related nouns show it too: מוֹשָׁב, מוֹלֶדֶת, תּוֹצָאָה, תּוֹדָעָה. And in the heavy binyanim — pi'el, pu'al, hitpa'el — nothing squeezes the first radical at all, so the yod survives as a plain consonant: לְיַשֵּׁב "settle, resolve", לְיַדֵּעַ "notify, update", written לְיַידֵּעַ in full spelling. One root, three different fates for the same letter, each one predictable from where it stands.
הוריד in full
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| Present sg. | מוֹרִיד moríd | מוֹרִידָה morída |
| Present pl. | מוֹרִידִים moridím | מוֹרִידוֹת moridót |
| Past 1 | הוֹרַדְתִּי horádti · הוֹרַדְנוּ horádnu | |
| Past 2 sg. | הוֹרַדְתָּ horádta | הוֹרַדְתְּ horádt |
| Past 3 | הוֹרִיד horíd | הוֹרִידָה horída |
| Past 3 pl. | הוֹרִידוּ horídu | |
| Future 1 | אוֹרִיד oríd · נוֹרִיד noríd | |
| Future 2 sg. | תּוֹרִיד toríd | תּוֹרִידִי torídi |
| Future 3 | יוֹרִיד yoríd | תּוֹרִיד toríd |
| Infinitive | לְהוֹרִיד lehoríd | |
| Imperative | הוֹרֵד horéd (formal) | הוֹרִידִי horídi (formal) |
Read down the first column: the וֹ never moves and never changes. The 1st-person future is the one form worth pausing on: everywhere else in hif'il it opens with אַ־, a patach — אַסְבִּיר, אַתְחִיל, אַגִּיעַ — but here the alef carries the o itself, אוֹרִיד. The א is still the prefix; it has simply taken the class's vowel like every other prefix letter does.
Note also torídi and horídu: the stress stays on the stem's long i rather than moving to the ending, which is hif'il's standing exception to the stress rule. But the present plural does move it — moridím, moridót — because the participle follows the noun pattern, not the verb one.
הורדתי את האפליקציה אבל היא לא נפתחת.
horádti et ha'aplikátsya avál hi lo niftákhat
I downloaded the app but it won't open.
תושיבי אותם ליד החלון, שם יותר שקט.
toshívi otám leyád hakhalón, sham yotér shéket
Put them by the window — it's quieter there. (to a woman)
תודיעי לי אם משהו משתנה.
todí'i li im máshehu mishtané
Let me know if anything changes. (to a woman)
הודיע governs two things at once: ל־ for the person told and על or ש־ for the news. הודיעו לנו על השינוי, הודיעה למנהל שהיא מתפטרת. It never takes את for the person — that slot belongs to the message, if anything.
הוֹצִיא against הִצִּיעַ
Two roots that share their first two letters take completely different hif'il shapes:
| Root | hif'il | What happened to the yod | Class |
|---|---|---|---|
| י־צ־א | הוֹצִיא hotsí took out | reverted to ו, became a long o | פ״י |
| י־צ־ע | הִצִּיעַ hitsía suggested | assimilated into the צ, leaving a dagesh | גזרת חפי״צ |
Only a small closed set — גזרת חפי״צ, eight roots with י first and צ or ז second — takes the second route. Everything else beginning with י takes the first. The mechanism, and why a dagesh does not tell you which letter was swallowed, is on hif'il פ״נ.
מוריד, מודיע — or a huf'al?
Both hif'il פ״י and every huf'al open with מו־ in unpointed writing, so the two look alike at a glance. They are not hard to separate once you know what to look at.
| Written | Reading | Binyan | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| מוריד | מוֹרִיד moríd | hif'il פ״י | takes down, lowers |
| מודיע | מוֹדִיעַ modía | hif'il פ״י | informs |
| מוזמן | מוּזְמָן muzmán | huf'al | is invited, is ordered |
| מודפס | מוּדְפָּס mudpás | huf'al | is printed |
השולחן מוזמן על שם כהן, לשמונה.
hashulkhán muzmán al shem kohén, lishmoné
The table is booked under Cohen, for eight o'clock.
More of the class, and a dictionary footnote
הוֹסִיף "add" (י־ס־ף) is the most frequent member after הוריד and הוציא; הוֹפִיעַ "appear, perform" (י־פ־ע), הוֹכִיחַ "prove" (י־כ־ח), הוֹעִיל "be of use" (י־ע־ל) and הוֹשִׁיט "hold out, extend" (י־שׁ־ט) round out the everyday set. Note what these have in common: הופיע, הוכיח and הועיל have no pa'al at all, and הוסיף's — יוֹסֵף — is marked archaic by Pealim. The neat causative pairing of the first table is a property of part of the class, not of all of it.
הוא הופיע בלי להודיע מראש והביא איתו עוד שניים.
hu hofía bli lehodía merósh vehévi itó od shnáyim
He turned up without any warning and brought two more people with him.
הוא הוסיף שהוא לא בטוח בכלל שזה יעבוד.
hu hosíf shehú lo batúakh bikhlál shezé ya'avód
He added that he wasn't at all sure it would work.
One footnote for anyone who checks more than one dictionary: Milog files הודיע under ו־ד־ע, while Pealim and ויקימילון give י־ד־ע. Both are describing the same history from opposite ends — Milog names the original letter, the others the letter the root shows in its citation form. Neither is an error, and nothing about the conjugation depends on it.
Common Mistakes
1. Building the hif'il on the pa'al stem. You know לרדת, so you attach the hif'il prefix to ־רד.
❌ אני צריך להריד את הקבצים
Incorrect — there is no such infinitive. The first radical surfaces as a long o: אני צריך להוריד את הקבצים, lehoríd. Same for להושיב, להוציא, להודיע — the pa'al stem is never what the hif'il is built on.
✅ אני צריך להוריד את הקבצים לפני שהם נמחקים.
aní tsaríkh lehoríd et hakvatsím lifnéi shehém nimkhakím
I need to download the files before they get deleted. (m. speaker)
2. Writing a yod into the past. The stem contracts under a personal ending, exactly as it does in every other hif'il.
❌ הורידתי את התמונה מהאלבום
Incorrect — the long i belongs to the third person. With an ending the stem shortens: הורדתי את התמונה מהאלבום, horádti. Likewise הודעתי, הוצאתי, הושבנו.
3. Restoring the yod as a consonant. The root is י־ר־ד and it is tempting to spell it.
❌ הירדתי את המזוודה מהארון
Incorrect — no hif'il form of this class writes the yod. It is הורדתי את המזוודה מהארון. The yod only reappears in the heavy binyanim: לְיַשֵּׁב, לְיַידֵּעַ.
4. Using the pa'al where the hif'il is meant. תרד and תוריד differ by one vowel in speech and by a vav on the page, and they are not interchangeable.
✅ תרד מהאוטובוס בתחנה אחרי הכיכר.
teréd meha'otóbus batakhaná akharéi hakikár
Get off the bus at the stop after the roundabout. (to a man)
✅ תוריד רגע את המזגן, קר לי.
toríd réga et hamazgán, kar li
Turn the air conditioning down a second, I'm cold. (to a man)
Key Takeaways
- פ״י in hif'il: the initial י surfaces as a long o written with a vav, in every single form — הוֹרִיד, הוֹשִׁיב, הוֹצִיא, הוֹדִיעַ, הוֹלִיד, הוֹסִיף, הוֹפִיעַ.
- That vav is the root's original ו, preserved because the prefix keeps it out of word-initial position. It shows up in the nouns too: מוֹשָׁב, מוֹלֶדֶת, תּוֹצָאָה.
- The causative pairing with pa'al is genuine here — לָדַעַת / הוֹדִיעַ "cause to know", לָשֶׁבֶת / הוֹשִׁיב, לָרֶדֶת / הוֹרִיד — but it does not cover the whole class: הוסיף, הופיע, הוכיח and הועיל have no living pa'al partner.
- The 1st-person future prefix carries the o instead of hif'il's usual patach: אוֹרִיד, אוֹדִיעַ, אוֹצִיא against אַסְבִּיר, אַתְחִיל.
- ־י and ־וּ do not take the stress (torídi, horídu), but the present plural does (moridím).
- י־צ־א gives הוֹצִיא, י־צ־ע gives הִצִּיעַ — the second belongs to the eight-root גזרת חפי״צ, where the yod assimilates instead.
- מו־ plus a yod is always hif'il (מוריד, מודיע); מו־ with no yod is usually huf'al (מוזמן, מודפס) — but not when the root is also ל״ה: מוֹרֶה and מוֹדֶה are hif'il.
- הודיע takes ל־ for the person and על / ש־ for the news, never את for the person.
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- Pa'al פ״י: ישב, ידע, ירד, יצאB1 — Two different classes hide behind one name. The large one drops its yod and gives יֵשֵׁב, לָשֶׁבֶת, לָדַעַת, לָצֵאת; the small one keeps it and gives יִישַׁן. Split them and the paradigm stops looking random.
- פ״י Across the BinyanimB2 — The first radical of ישב, ירד and ידע is a י that was once a ו, and it surfaces as a different letter in almost every binyan: nothing in pa'al's future, a cholam in hif'il, a full consonant in pi'el and hitpa'el. Name the class and the opaque infinitives stop being arbitrary.
- Huf'al Present: מוזמן, מודפס, מוגשB1 — Four cells, a vav one letter in from the front, and the reason a menu says מוגש while a receptionist says מוזמנת — plus the two other מ־forms this one is genuinely confused with.
- Hif'il פ״נ: הגיע, הכיר, הפילB1 — In hif'il the initial נ of נ־ג־ע, נ־כ־ר and נ־פ־ל never appears at all — it is swallowed by the next letter and leaves only a dagesh, giving הִגִּיעַ, הִכִּיר, הִפִּיל. But a dagesh only proves that something was absorbed, not that it was a נ: הִצִּיעַ looks identical and is י־צ־ע.
- Weak Roots (גזרות): Why Some Words Look BrokenA2 — קם has two consonants, יפול has lost its נ, and קנה ends in a letter nobody pronounces. None of these verbs is irregular — each belongs to a גזרה, a root class where one weak letter behaves predictably. Here are the classes, the reason a letter goes missing, and where each one is taught in full.