UPMSP High School Urdu flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Matla

The opening couplet of a ghazal, in which both lines share the same radif and qafiya. It sets the rhyme pattern that every later couplet must follow.

Maqta

The final couplet of a ghazal, containing the poet's takhallus or pen name. It often carries a personal reflection or a direct address to the beloved.

Radif

The word or phrase repeated at the very end of both lines of every couplet in a ghazal. It stays identical throughout the poem.

Qafiya

The rhyming word placed immediately before the radif in a ghazal. It must change from couplet to couplet while matching in sound.

Sher and Misra

A sher is a two-line unit of Urdu poetry; each of its two lines is called a misra. A ghazal is counted by its number of shers.

Nazm

An Urdu poem with a single continuous theme and no radif-qafiya constraint. It may be narrative, descriptive, or philosophical, and is examined for its central idea.

Takhallus

The pen name a poet adopts and inserts into the maqta of a ghazal. Ghalib, Mir, and Iqbal are takhallus names, not given names.

Behr

The fixed metrical pattern of syllables on which a ghazal is composed. A couplet that breaks the behr is considered metrically faulty.

Tarkeeb

Grammatical analysis of an Urdu sentence word by word, labelling each word with its part of speech and grammatical function.

Fail-e-Mutaddi

A transitive verb, one that needs an object to complete its meaning, such as 'likhna' in 'khat likhna'. Contrasted with fail-e-lazim.

Ism-e-Khas

A proper noun naming a specific person, place, or thing, such as 'Lucknow' or 'Ghalib'. It is not preceded by the definite article concept in Urdu.

Muhavara

A fixed idiomatic phrase whose meaning is figurative rather than literal, such as 'aankh ka tara'. Changing even one word destroys the idiom.

Zarb-ul-Masal

A complete proverb sentence carrying folk wisdom, distinct from a muhavara because it stands alone as a full utterance rather than fitting inside a sentence.

Muzakkar aur Muannas

The masculine and feminine genders of Urdu nouns. Kitab, zameen and hawa are feminine; qalam, ghar and darwaza are masculine.

Wahid aur Jam'a

The singular and plural forms of an Urdu noun. Regular pairs include larka-larke and kitab-kitaben; several nouns take irregular plurals that must be memorised.

Fail ke Zamane

The three tenses of the Urdu verb: mazi for past, haal for present, and mustaqbil for future. Tense consistency is checked in translation tasks.

Kafan by Premchand

A short story in which Ghafoor and his wife spend money meant for a shroud on food, exposing how extreme poverty destroys ordinary human feeling.

Sair Pahle Darwesh ki

A satirical prose piece mocking a hypocritical ascetic whose apparent piety collapses when tested. It targets religious showmanship rather than genuine faith.

Premchand

Dhanpat Rai, the foremost Urdu-Hindi fiction writer, known for social realism and criticism of poverty and hypocrisy in stories such as Kafan and Poos ki Raat.

Mir Taqi Mir

An eighteenth-century Urdu poet called Khuda-e-Sukhan for the simplicity and emotional depth of his ghazals, which dwell on love, loss, and helplessness.

Mirza Ghalib

A nineteenth-century poet known for intellectual complexity, irony, and philosophical pessimism. His collected ghazals form the Diwan-e-Ghalib.

Allama Iqbal

Poet and philosopher whose collections Bang-e-Dara and Bal-e-Jibril develop the doctrine of khudi, or selfhood, and call for Muslim awakening.

Wali Deccani

A seventeenth-century poet credited with bringing the Urdu ghazal to maturity and shifting its centre from the Deccan to North India.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan

Founder of the Aligarh movement and the journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, who promoted modern education and simple, direct Urdu prose.

Mazmoon Structure

An Urdu essay follows wahdat-e-mauzoo, tamheed, tafseel, and natija: unity of topic, introduction, detailed body, and conclusion. Straying off topic is penalised.

Rasmi aur Ghair-Rasmi Khat

The two registers of Urdu letter writing: formal letters to officials use a designation-based salutation, while personal letters to relatives use an intimate opening.

Darkhwast

A formal application to an authority. It states the purpose in the first line and closes with a request formula such as 'Aap se guzarish hai ke'.

Tarjuma

Translation judged on fidelity of meaning rather than word-for-word equivalence. Idioms must be rendered by an equivalent idiom in the target language.

Markazi Khayal

The central idea of a passage or poem, stated in a single sentence without supporting examples. It is a standard comprehension and poetry question.

Khulasa

A summary of a passage compressed to roughly one-third of its length, retaining the main points and dropping illustrative detail.

Harf-e-Ghair-Muttasil

A non-connecting Urdu letter such as alif, dal, re, ze, or wao. Any letter following it must restart in its isolated or initial form.

Nuqta

The dot that distinguishes otherwise similar Urdu letters, as in be, pe, te, and se. A misplaced or missing nuqta changes the word entirely.

Tashdeed

A diacritic placed over an Urdu consonant to double it, so the letter is pronounced twice. It is written as a small w-shaped mark.