Root · 30 in the Quran · 9 in 4 texts of the library
أنثIbn Fāris's own entry is not given among these excerpts; based on al-Khalīl and … (root nth)
English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of أ ن ث that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
17 words4 verbs4 verbal nouns2 participles1 place or instrument1 intensive or elative4 other nouns1 plural
- أُنثَىfemale; feminine
- أُنثَيَيْن—
- إِنَاث—
- اَنVثَit was, or became, female, feminine, or of the feminine gender
- أنّثَhe made it feminine
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4اَنVثَ · أنّثَ · آنَثَتَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Verbal nouns4أَنَاثَة · أُنُوثَة · إِينَاث
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles2مُؤَنَّث · مُؤْنِث
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Place, time and instrument1مِئْنَاث
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مِئْنَاثwoman who usually brings forth femalesLanenoun of instrumentLane
Intensives, qualities and the elative1أَنِيث
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- أَنِيثplain, even, or soft, land, or ground, that produces many plants, or much …Lanequality (faʿīl)Lane
Other nouns4أُنثَى · أُنثَيَيْن · أُنْثَي
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- أُنثَىfemale; feminineautonounQurʾān ×24library ×3
- أُنثَيَيْنnounQurʾān ×6
- أُنْثَيfemaleLanenounLane
- إِنَاثnounLane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 12 patterns does
What each pattern does. The pattern gives a tendency, not a rule: many words have drifted into meanings of their own.
The pattern machinePour the root into a pattern; see whether the word exists
Choose a pattern; the root's letters pour into it. Then see whether the word exists in our sources. The machine makes shapes; only usage makes words.
Not in our sources. A possible shape, not a word we can show: the Quran, the library and Lane do not have it for this root.
Place noun with -a. The place noun with the feminine -a. Sometimes it is only a variant of mafʿal; often it names the place where a thing is found in abundance (maʾsada, 'a place full of lions'). So maktab is the place of writing, and maktaba, where writings are gathered: a library, a bookshop. Our summary AI
But: maktaba is not in our classical dictionaries for k-t-b: Lane and al-Jawharī give maktab ('a school'), none gives maktaba. Its sense of 'library, bookshop' fits the pattern of abundance, but that is our reading of the pattern, not a classical entry. Many mafʿala words are single items of usage (maqbara 'cemetery'), which the grammarians call heard, not formed by rule.
The grammarians on this pattern (4)
ما يكون مفعلة لازمة لها الهاء والفتحة … وذلك إذا أردت أن تكثر الشيء بالمكان، وذلك قولك: أرض مسبعة، ومأسدة
Chapter on what is mafʿala, with the -a and the a-vowel always: that is when you mean that a thing abounds in a place, as you say 'a land of many beasts of prey (masbaʿa), of many lions (maʾsada)' AI
Sībawayh (d. c. 180/796), al-Kitāb, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn, 3rd ed. (Cairo: al-Khānjī, 1988), 4:94 · OpenITI line 21027–21028 ↗ · on this site · OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
و نحو المظنة و المقبرة فتحا و ضما ليس بقياس
and words like maẓinna and maqbara (with a or u) are not by rule AI
Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249), al-Shāfiya fī ʿilm al-taṣrīf, ed. Ḥasan Aḥmad al-ʿUthmān (Mecca: al-Maktaba al-Makkiyya, 1995), 1:30 · OpenITI line 223 ↗ · on this site · OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- “designate the place where the object signified by the noun from which they are formed, is found in large numbers or quantities” Wright, Grammar I, §247, p. 148 ↗ · on nouns of abundance, maf'ala · 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1896) · public domain
- “Nouns of time and place not unfrequently take the feminine form” Wright, Grammar I, §225, p. 128 ↗ · on maf'ala as a variant of maf'al · 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1896) · public domain
This root has a weak or doubled letter, so real words change shape (qāla → qāʾil, not qāwil); the machine pours the letters in as they are, and matches attested words by their regular pattern.
About thisWhat “attested” means here; the sources
Attested means found in our data: the Quranic Arabic Corpus (lemmas, verb Forms, participles, verbal nouns, plurals), the library's words (automatic analysis), Lane's Lexicon (his headwords, the Forms he numbers, the verbal nouns and plurals he names) and Ibn Fāris's entry. Nothing is generated for this list. Meanings are Lane's first gloss in his entry, or else the analyser's gloss (“auto”). Vowelling follows the corpus, then Lane, then the analyser; verbs are given in the regular perfect. Lane's Lexicon thins out after qāf, and a few of his entries cover several roots at once: those roots show no Lane. The patterns, written with ف ع ل, are computed by us.
The dictionaries
English: AI translation AIal-Khalīl · 170Al-unthā (الأنثى): the opposite of al-dhakar (male) in everything.
al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn. The first Arabic dictionary, arranged by permutations of the root letters.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Jawharī · 393Al-unthā (الأنثى): the opposite of al-dhakar (male);
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-unthā (الأنثى): the opposite of al-dhakar (male).
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Al-unthā (الأنثى): the opposite of al-dhakar (male) in everything;
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic below
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
an entry in Ibn Fārislater sources onlyin none of them
Do these six share one core meaning?
Reference
About thisal-Khalīl, Ibn Jinnī, Ibn Fāris; the counts across the dictionary
al-Khalīl (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn, as transmitted by al-Layth: a two-letter word “turns in two ways”, a three-letter word “in six ways” (masdūsa), four letters in 24, five in 120; “its used forms are written down and its unused ones dropped” (line 975 ↗). The dictionary is built on this: each chapter takes a set of letters and names which orders are used (mustaʿmal) and which unused (muhmal). The ring shows that verdict, from the chapter heading as edited (documented in the text; how much of the book is al-Khalīl's own is disputed).
A reported total. al-Suyūṭī transmits, from Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, that al-Khalīl put the possible forms, used and unused, of two to five letters at 12,305,412 (al-Muzhir, line 1347 ↗). It is reported, not found in the ʿAyn. It equals exactly the arrangements of 2 to 5 different letters out of 28 (756 + 19,656 + 491,400 + 11,793,600); the breakdown printed beside it is corrupt, and al-Zubaydī's count, given next, differs (6,659,400).
Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, names the greater derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar): bind a three-letter root and its six orders to one meaning, and bring stray members back “by the subtlety of the craft and interpretation” (line 7536 ↗). He says himself that it does not hold for every root (line 167 ↗; line 7603 ↗).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) gives each root its own aṣl and treats a rearranged word as maqlūb, “turned round”, and so not a root of its own: “j-b-dh is not a root, because it is a single word, turned round” (Maqāyīs, line 6147 ↗). The ring sets his aṣl for each order side by side; whether they meet is the question.
Neighbours on the ring differ by one swap of two letters.
The critique. A source quoted by al-Suyūṭī calls the greater derivation Ibn Jinnī's innovation, “not relied on in the language” (al-Muzhir, line 6159 ↗).
The other axis. The root's letters also go into patterns that keep their order and change the frame: the patterns (awzān) and the verb Forms I–X.
Across Ibn Fāris's dictionary. Of the 2,300 possible sets of three different sound letters (no hamza, w or y), 1,021 have at least one order as an entry. How many of their six orders are entries:
- 1 of 6319
- 2 of 6218
- 3 of 6164
- 4 of 6155
- 5 of 6107
- 6 of 658
- 1 of 6148
- 2 of 6108
- 3 of 6157
- 4 of 6179
- 5 of 6111
- 6 of 643
Of the orders al-Khalīl calls used, 2,097 are entries in Ibn Fāris and 267 are not; 17 that he calls unused are entries in Ibn Fāris.
Attested here means found in our digital texts (Ibn Fāris, Lisān al-ʿArab, Lane, the Quranic Arabic Corpus), with w and y kept apart and hamza spellings merged; it is our data, not a classical verdict. English beside the Arabic is AI translation. Sources and grades: docs/research/root-permutations.md.
Letters & sound
- أhamzadeep in the throat · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- نnūntip of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- ثthāʾtongue-tip, edges of the teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
How each letter is made, in brief, from Sībawayh's and Ibn Jinnī's own sentences (linked); their words are under Reference.
Sharing two of its three letters (computed; kinship of form, not of meaning)
Reference
How it is madeSībawayh and Ibn Jinnī · phonetics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
أ
فأقصاها مخرجا: الهمزة والهاء والألف
The furthest of them [the three in the throat] in place: the hamza, the hāʾ and the alif. Sībawayh, line 26548 ↗
فأولها من أسفله وأقصاه، مخرج الهمزة والألف والهاء، هكذا يقول سيبويه
The first of them [in the throat], from its lowest and furthest part, is the place of the hamza, the alif and the hāʾ: so Sībawayh says. Ibn Jinnī, line 965 ↗
ن
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان ما بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى وما فويق الثنايا مخرج النون
From the edge of the tongue, from its nearest part to the end of its tip, between it and the upper palate next to it and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Sībawayh, lines 26555–26556 ↗
ومن طرف اللسان بينه وبين ما فويق الثنايا، مخرج النون
From the tip of the tongue, between it and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Ibn Jinnī, line 979 ↗
ث
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأطراف الثنايا مخرج الظاء والذال، والثاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the edges of the front teeth is the place of the ẓāʾ, the dhāl and the thāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26561 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأطراف الثنايا، مخرج الظاء والذال والثاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the edges of the front teeth is the place of the ẓāʾ, the dhāl and the thāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 984 ↗
Sībawayh, al-Kitāb (ed. Hārūn) and Ibn Jinnī, Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb; OpenITI digital texts (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Full credits on each letter's page.
In the Breath of the All-MercifulIbn ʿArabī · metaphysics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
أ
Nature (ch. 2)
وإلا الهاء والهمزة فإنهما باردتان رطبتان
And except hāʾ and hamza, for these two are cold and moist.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2583ن
Level of existence: السماء الرابعة · the fourth heaven
Divine Name: النور · the Light (al-Nūr)
Lunar mansion: السماك · al-Simāk
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64663Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 8 line 2571 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
الثمانية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The eightfold [rank]: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2580ث
Level of existence: النبات · plants
Divine Name: الرزاق · al-Razzāq, the Provider
Lunar mansion: بلع · Balaʿ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62114Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
المرتبة العشرية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The tenfold rank: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2582Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
أ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الأشياء قلت أو كثرت، وتكون الإشارة في بعض الأحيان من المتكلم إلى ذاته ونفسه، وهذه الإشارة سالمة من القبض.
It is an indication of all things, whether few or many. At times the indication is from the speaker to his own essence and self, and this indication is free of contraction (qabḍ).
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القريب القليل.
It is an indication of the near, small thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القريب المناسب.
It is an indication of the near, fitting (congruent) thing.
ن
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الخير الساكن في الذات الشاعل فيها.
It is the good that dwells in the self, kindling [al-shāʿil, as written] within it.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الخير الكامل أو النور الساطع.
It is an indication of perfect good or radiant light.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى شيء يدركه المتكلم أو هو له.
It is an indication of something that the speaker perceives or that belongs to him.
ث
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى النور أو الظلام.
It is an indication of light or darkness.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى زوال الشيء من الشيء.
It is an indication of a thing's departing from a thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى جعل الشيء على الشيء.
It is an indication of placing a thing upon a thing.
In the sister scriptsHebrew א נ שSyriac ܐ ܢ ܬ
| Arabic | أ ن ث |
| Hebrew | א נ ש |
| Syriac | ܐ ܢ ܬ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩱 𐩬 𐩻 |
| Phoenician | 𐤀 𐤍 𐤔 |
Letter for letter, by the regular sound correspondences of the Semitic languages (Arabic keeps several sounds the others merged). This shows how the root would be spelled; whether a related word exists is a separate question, answered in the Semitic lens. Where an Arabic sibilant (s, sh) continues two older sounds, both spellings are shown.
Lenses
AIClassical lexiconAl-Khalīl's ʿAyn states the core opposition plainly: al-unthā, 'the opposite of al-dhakar in everything,' plural إناث, with two homonymous duals al-unthayān denoting either 'the two testicles' or, in another usage, 'the two ears.' Al-Jawharī's Ṣiḥāḥ adds the denominative āntharat al-marʾa, 'the woman bore a female child,' the intensive muʾnāth, and two extended technical senses: al-anīth for iron not hardened ('not male'), and, per al-Kilābī, arḍ anītha for soft, easily-vegetated soil.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl's ʿAyn states the core opposition plainly: al-unthā, 'the opposite of al-dhakar in everything,' plural إناث, with two homonymous duals al-unthayān denoting either 'the two testicles' or, in another usage, 'the two ears.' Al-Jawharī's Ṣiḥāḥ adds the denominative āntharat al-marʾa, 'the woman bore a female child,' the intensive muʾnāth, and two extended technical senses: al-anīth for iron not hardened ('not male'), and, per al-Kilābī, arḍ anītha for soft, easily-vegetated soil. Al-Rāghib's Mufradāt supplies the conceptual hinge for these extensions: dhakar and unthā are paired by reference to the two sexual organs, but because the female of any species is observed to be weaker (taḍʿuf) in exertive function than the male, 'weakness' attached itself to the very notion of unthā, hence unfired 'soft' iron is anīth. Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān, latest of these, extends the word into Qurʾānic textual controversy, recording variant readings of illā ināthan ('only females,' of idols) and an explanation, via al-Farrāʾ citing Ibn ʿAbbās's reading illā athnan, that classes idols as inert, lifeless things spoken of as 'the feminine,' i.e. as objects rather than agents.
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · al-Mufradāt · Lisān al-ʿArab
Letters & soundAl-Dabbāgh glosses nūn as 'the good that dwells in the self, kindling within it,' and thāʾ as 'an indication of light or darkness';speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Al-Dabbāgh glosses nūn as 'the good that dwells in the self, kindling within it,' and thāʾ as 'an indication of light or darkness'; the Akbarian table assigns nūn to 'the fourth heaven' and thāʾ to 'plants.' None of these bears an obvious, non-strained connection to sex-differentiation, and no data is given for hamza here. This lens is supplied for completeness rather than because the correspondences are persuasive; such sound-symbolist readings are speculative and not verifiable by ordinary historical-linguistic method.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letters-in-the-Breath table · al-Dabbāgh letter meanings
Root structureNo bi-radical nucleus data is given.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
No bi-radical nucleus data is given. Among the six permutations, only two others are registered as genuine roots: نثا (nathā), 'to spread a report or piece of news,' sharing no obvious sense-thread with unthā; and أثن, which Ibn Fāris explicitly denies root-status, treating it as a phonetic substitution (badal) for وثن, 'idol.' This last point intersects, purely as coincidence rather than demonstrable derivation, with Ibn Manẓūr's report that a Qurʾānic variant reading of ināthan as athnan was itself glossed by some early readers via wathan — the lexical accident of أثن~وثن and the exegetical accident of a Qurʾānic reading converge without a provable derivational link between them.
Draws on: Maqāyīs permutation grid
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsArabic unthā belongs to a recognized Proto-Semitic set built on *ʾanṯ-, 'female, wife': Akkadian aššatu 'wife', Hebrew ʾiššāh 'woman, wife' (from earlier *ʾanṯ-at, with assimilation of -nṯ- to -šš-), and Aramaic ʾittā/ʾattetā 'woman, wife' all reflect the same base, alongside Sabaic ʾntt 'wife, woman' in Old South Arabian inscriptions.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Arabic unthā belongs to a recognized Proto-Semitic set built on *ʾanṯ-, 'female, wife': Akkadian aššatu 'wife', Hebrew ʾiššāh 'woman, wife' (from earlier *ʾanṯ-at, with assimilation of -nṯ- to -šš-), and Aramaic ʾittā/ʾattetā 'woman, wife' all reflect the same base, alongside Sabaic ʾntt 'wife, woman' in Old South Arabian inscriptions. Arabic generalizes the root to 'female' as a biological category across species rather than restricting it to 'wife/woman' as the other branches largely do, but the root itself is inherited, not borrowed.
Draws on: comparative Semitic *ʾanṯ- 'female, wife' · Sabaic inscriptions
Quranic exegesisAl-unthā is central to the Qurʾān's inheritance and retaliation legislation: in 4:11, lil-dhakari mithlu ḥaẓẓi l-unthayayn ('to the male the portion of two females') sets the paradigmatic share ratio for offspring;plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Al-unthā is central to the Qurʾān's inheritance and retaliation legislation: in 4:11, lil-dhakari mithlu ḥaẓẓi l-unthayayn ('to the male the portion of two females') sets the paradigmatic share ratio for offspring; al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī discuss the rationale in terms of the male heir's financial obligations (support of dependents, dower burdens) rather than a claim about intrinsic worth, a reading sometimes brought into dialogue with al-Rāghib's lexical note that ḍaʿf ('weakness') underlies the word's very sense. In 2:178, on qiṣāṣ, al-ḥurru bi-l-ḥurri wa-l-ʿabdu bi-l-ʿabdi wa-l-unthā bi-l-unthā establishes parity of retaliation within like categories; al-Zamakhsharī reads this as establishing legal equivalence classes rather than a hierarchy of value between victims.
Reference