الشرطة لقت سلاح.

to find

Breakdown of الشرطة لقت سلاح.

• شرطة: police
• سلاح: weapon

Questions & Answers about الشرطة لقت سلاح.

Does الشرطة mean one police officer or the police as a whole?

الشرطة means the police as an institution or force, not one individual officer.

If you want to say a policeman, that is شرطي.
If you want to say the policewoman, that is شرطية.

So in this sentence, الشرطة refers to the police as a group/organization.

Why is the verb لقت feminine singular?

Because الشرطة is grammatically feminine singular in Arabic.

Even though the police refers to many people in real life, the word شرطة is treated as a singular feminine noun. So the verb agrees with it and appears in the 3rd person feminine singular form:

• لَقَت / لِقِت / لْقِت depending on dialect/pronunciation traditions

So the agreement in the sentence is normal:

• الشرطة لقت = the police found

What exactly is لقت?

لقت is a Levantine colloquial past-tense verb meaning found.

It is not the most formal or Standard Arabic way to say this. In everyday Levantine, this kind of verb is very common. The exact pronunciation can vary by region, but in this sentence it functions simply as found.

Because the subject الشرطة is feminine singular, the verb is also in the feminine singular past form.