Grammar term · Sarf · morphology
الْمُفْرَد
al-mufrad
Singular of (a plural)
Sarf · morphologyNumber & plural typecore term6,673+ in the Qur'an
In one line
'The singular of the plural': the one-form a plural is built from — رِجَال traces back to رَجُل.
Classical definition
مُفْرَدُ الجَمْعِ هُوَ اللَّفْظُ الدَّالُّ عَلَى الوَاحِدِ الَّذِي بُنِيَ مِنْهُ الجَمْعُ.
“The singular of a plural is the word denoting the single unit from which the plural was built.”
(بتصرف من شذا العرف)
Key words in the Arabic
بُنِيَ مِنْهُ الْجَمْعُthe plural was built from it
Understand it
Every plural has an address it came from, and grammars call that address مُفْرَدُ الْجَمْعِ. Finding it is a daily skill in Qur'an reading: meet مَسَٰجِد and walk back to مَسْجِد, meet أَلْسِنَة and walk back to لِسَان. For sound plurals the walk is short — remove the ending; for broken plurals you must know the recast pattern, which is why plurals are learned in pairs with their singulars.
How to spot it
Recognition test
Ask of any plural: 'one of these is a ___?' — the word that fills the blank is its mufrad. If deleting ـُونَ / ـَات answers it, the plural was sound; otherwise it was broken.
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