Grammar term · Word types · Harf — the particle

What is a particle (harf)?

harf
حَرْف
Word typesHarf — the particlecore term33,542+ in the Qur'an
Also written: harf (naw' al-kalima) · Particle (harf) — word class tag · HARF · Particle
In one line
A harf (حَرْف) is a word whose meaning appears only beside another word — and its ending never changes.
Definition
هُوَ كَلِمَةٌ دَلَّتْ عَلَى مَعْنًى فِي غَيْرِهَا.
“It is a word that indicates a meaning in something other than itself.”
(النحو التطبيقي)
Understand it

A حَرْف (harf) has a meaning, but the meaning does not show until it stands beside another word.

Take مِنْ (min). On its own it settles nothing. Put it in a sentence and it does one job or another — it starts a distance in مِنَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ (mina al-masjidi al-harāmi), “from the Sacred Mosque”, and it takes a part out of a whole in مِنَ النَّاسِ (mina al-nāsi), “some of the people”.

Kinds of Harf
حَرْف جَرّ–(harf jarr)حَرْف عَطْف–(harf 'atf)حَرْف نَصْب–(harf nasab)حَرْف جَزْم–(harf jazm)

A harf is named after the job it does — jarr, 'atf, nasab, jazm, and more besides.

A harf accepts none of the signs of the ism and none of the signs of the fi'l. That refusal is what identifies it.

How to spot it
وَالْحَرْفُ مَا لَا يَصْلُحُ مَعَهُ دَلِيلُ الِاسْمِ وَلَا دَلِيلُ الْفِعْلِ.
“The particle is that with which neither the sign of the noun nor the sign of the verb fits.”
Recognition test
If a word takes neither noun-signs nor verb-signs, it is a harf — e.g. مِنْ، هَلْ، لَمْ.
(الآجرّومية)
In the language — فِي اللُّغَة

Like most Arabic grammar terms, حَرْف (harf) was taken from everyday speech and then given one precise technical sense.

In everyday Arabic it means an edge, and it is also the word for a letter of the alphabet.

حُرُوف الْهِجَاء (hurūf al-hijā') — “the letters of the alphabet”

In Arabic grammar it means a whole word whose meaning appears only in company. مِنْ is a harf of two letters.

Draft · awaiting final review. This page is being rewritten and checked against the source books.