Article
In Biblical Hebrew, nouns are classified according to gender, either masculine, feminine, or sometimes both. Grammatical modifiers (such as adjectives, active and passive participles, pronouns, pronominal suffixes) change their endings in order to agree with the gender of the term they refer to. A finite verb with feminine gender indicates a feminine subject. All references to female persons in Biblical Hebrew are feminine. However, other entities apart from people can also be classified as feminine. For example, the proper names of cities are often feminine in Biblical Hebrew, as well as body parts that exist as pairs (hand, foot, etc.). Some particles are also marked for gender in Biblical Hebrew.
Note
Some feminine nouns do NOT take feminine endings, even some common nouns such as אֵם (mother) and אֶרֶץ (earth). They appear to be masculine nouns, but they are actually feminine nouns. A dictionary or lexicon will indicate the proper gender for each word.
