What do the gradings sahih, hasan, da'if, and mawdu' actually mean?

Hadith scholars sort reports into four broad grades based on how reliably they can be traced back to the Prophet. Sahih ('authentic') hadith have a complete, unbroken chain of trustworthy, accurate narrators with no hidden defects in the chain or text; these form the strongest basis for belief and practice. Hasan ('good') hadith meet the same conditions but involve narrators whose memory or precision is judged slightly weaker, still acceptable but a notch below sahih. Da'if ('weak') hadith have a genuine flaw in the chain, a narrator known for a poor memory, an unexplained gap between narrators, or similar, and cannot establish religious rulings on their own, though scholars differ on whether especially mild cases may be cited for general moral encouragement. Mawdu' ('fabricated') hadith are outright forgeries, invented and falsely attributed to the Prophet, often for political, sectarian, or storytelling reasons, and Muslims are forbidden from attributing them to him. This four-tier system, refined over centuries by scholars such as Ibn al-Salah and al-Dhahabi, remains the standard framework used by hadith specialists today, including in modern verification databases. The opening hadith of Sahih al-Bukhari, on sincerity of intention, is a textbook example of the sahih grade.

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