A strong characteristic of all the pi’el forms is a dagesh doubling of the middle root letter. In the perfect, the masculine singular has two syllables. The first vowel is normally khirik and, with strong roots, the second is tseirei, but there are variations in both these vowels.

Because their middle root letter can’t be doubled, empty ע roots are not conjugated in pi’el. Instead, a variant binyan called polel takes the place of pi’el for those roots. In polel, the middle root letter becomes a vowel kholam, and the third root letter appears twice.