Croatian Noun Gender

Every Croatian noun carries a gender — masculine, feminine, or neuter — and unlike French or German, you almost never have to memorise it. The final letter gives it away.

The Three Genders

Gender matters because everything that describes a noun — adjectives, possessives, past-tense verbs — changes shape to match it.

Reading Gender from the Ending

That single table covers the overwhelming majority of Croatian nouns. Read the last letter, know the gender.

Agreement: Making Words Match

Adjectives and possessives copy the noun's gender ending:

The pattern is beautifully regular: consonant / -a / -o on the noun → -i / -a / -o on the adjective. Whole phrases rhyme with themselves: velika bijela kuća — a big white house.

The Usual Suspects

A few patterns to watch:

• Masculine -a nouns: male people like tata (dad), kolega (colleague), vođa (leader) end in -a but stay masculine: moj tata.
• Feminine consonant nouns: a family of abstract nouns ends in a consonant yet is feminine — noć (night), ljubav (love), stvar (thing): dobra noć → laku noć.
• Neuter surprises: dijete (child) is neuter regardless of the child: moje dijete.