Declension of Adjectives

Adjectives are words used to describe or qualify nouns. Urdu adjectives are divided into two groups: declinable and indeclinable.

Declinable adjectives inflect for gender, number, and case. In a sentence, such an adjective always agrees with the noun it qualifies. Masculine declinable adjectives end in ا aa, while their feminine counterparts end in ی ii. For example, اچھا گھوڑا acchaa ghoRaa 'a good horse' - گھوڑی اچھی acchii ghoRii 'a good mare'.

Masculine adjectives that end in ا aa are declined in the same way as nouns of the first declension. (See Number, Case, and Types of Declension.) The only difference is in the oblique plural: for adjectives, this case form is the same as the oblique singular.

	Singular	Plural
Direct	گھوڑا اچھا acchaa ghoRaa	اچھے گھوڑے acche ghoRe
Oblique	گھوڑے اچھے acche ghoRe	گھوڑوں اچھے acche ghoRoN

Feminine adjectives that end in ی ii are indeclinable. All their case forms are the same:

	Singular	Plural
Direct	گھوڑی اچھی acchii ghoRii	گھوڑیاں اچھی acchii ghoRiyaaN
Oblique	گھوڑی اچھی acchii ghoRii	گھوڑیوں اچھی acchii ghoRiyoN

There are, however, some adjectives without a masculine form that ends in ا aa. Such adjectives have similar masculine and feminine forms and are indeclinable, meaning that they are never inflected.

An example of an indeclinable adjective without the masculine ending ا aa is خراب kh'araab 'bad, destroyed':

	Singular	Plural
Direct	خراب گھر kh'araab ghar 'a bad house'	گھر خراب kh'araab ghar
Oblique	گھر خراب kh'araab ghar	گھروں خراب kh'araab gharoN

	Singular	Plural
Direct	رسی خراب kh'araab rassii 'a bad rope'	رسیاں خراب kh'araab rassiyaaN
Oblique	رسی خراب kh'araab rassii	رسیوں خراب kh'araab rassiyoN