What is the broken plural (jam' taksir)?
In one line
Classical definition
Key words in the Arabic
Understand it
Where the sound plurals bolt an ending onto an intact singular, taksir reaches inside and rearranges the letters' vowels — كِتَاب to كُتُب, رَجُل to رِجَال, مَسْجِد to مَسَاجِد. The patterns are many and learned by exposure, not by rule; the dictionary habit of noting every plural exists for this reason. Grammatically it declines with the ordinary three vowels — except the grand patterns like مَسَاجِد, which cross into muntaha al-jumu' and lose their tanwin.
How to spot it
In the Qur'an
Forms it takes
Don't confuse it with
“Broken” describes what happens to the word, not to the rule. The singular's shape is taken apart and recast: رَجُل becomes رِجَال, كِتَاب becomes كُتُب.
The consequence is the part that matters. Because nothing was suffixed, a broken plural takes ordinary vowel endings like any singular noun — رِجَالٌ / رِجَالًا / رِجَالٍ — while a sound plural takes letter endings. Same meaning, completely different i'rab.
Related terms
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From the free course The Language of Quran — Easier than English (Book One) (LoQ1), taught by Ustadh Muhammad Arjan Ali.
Common questions
Is there a rule for forming the broken plural, or must each one be memorised?
There are patterns, and a great many plurals fall into a limited set of them — but the pattern cannot be predicted from the singular with certainty. Learn the plural together with the word, the same way you learn its gender.
Next in the guideاِسْم الجَمْعWhat is a collective noun (ism al-jam')? →Updated