موصوف/صفة (Mawsoof-siffah)¶

مَوْصُوْفٌ/صِفَّةٌ is a construct in Arabic to say things like "the tall man" or "a tall man" (i.e. a noun with an adjective). Here's some examples of it (again, memorise these to remember quickly how the rules work):

• رَجُلٌ طَوِيْلٌ - "a tall man"
• اَلْرَجُلُ اَلْطَوِيْلُ - "the tall man"

A few points:

• the adjective comes after the noun
• both parts need to match in
  • marifa ("the")/nakirah ("a")
    • i.e. the second word should start with ال only if the first word starts with ال
  • gender
    • i.e. both words should be feminine, or both words should be masculine
  • number
    • i.e. singular/dual/plural
  • I'raab
    • i.e. whether the last letter of the words is a fatha, dhamma, kasra etc. Again, this will make sense once you've gone through the section Rafa, Nasab & Jarr.
• موصوف/صفة doesn't form a complete sentence on it's own
• If the موصوف is a plural and is ghayr-aqil (i.e. it doesn't possess a mind; so it's neither Jinn, Insaan or Mala'aikah), then the صفة will be in single feminine form
  • (I know, this rule seems a bit specific, but just memorise it, so you know why plurals will often behave differently)