The Hebrew script used in these lessons are the internet Hebrew Unicodes and are best viewed with the David.ttf font uploaded to your fonts folder.

A Noun is defined as a person, place or thing and is the most common type of word in the Biblical text. Some common examples of nouns in the Biblical text are בן (ben - son), מלך (melek - king), ארץ (erets - land), יד (yad - hand), חי (hhai - life) and עץ (eyts - tree). Proper nouns are names of specific persons and places such as יעקב (Ya'aqov - Jacob) and מצרים (Mitsrayim - Egypt).

Every noun is either masculine or feminine. An obvious masculine noun is אישׁ (iysh - man) and an obvious feminine noun would be אשׁה (iyshah - woman). As can be seen in this example the suffix ה (ah) can be added to a masculine noun to make it feminine. Another example is the word מלך (melek - king), a masculine noun whereas מלכה (mal'khah - queen) is the feminine form. However, some nouns cannot be identified as masculine or feminine by any suffix, or lack of it. The word עץ (eyts - tree) is a masculine while רוּח (ru'ahh - wind) is feminine. The gender of a noun is important as will become evident in later lessons.

A simple noun is composed of the two or three letters of its root such as מלך (melek - king) which comes from the root מ-ל-ך (M-L-K). Also coming from the root מ-ל-ך is the verb מלך (malak - to reign). Other nouns are derived from this root by placing specific letters as fixes (prefixes, infixes or suffixes) to the root such as we saw with the word מלכה (mal'khah - Queen). Other nouns derived from מ-ל-ך are מלכוּת (mal'khut - Kingdom), ממלכוּת (mam'lekhut - Reign) and מלוּכה (melukhah - Royal).

Below is a list of the most common “fixes” added to a root for developing additional nouns. By recognizing these "fixes", one can easily uncover the original root word assisting the reader with identifying the meaning of the word.