Root · 22 in the Quran · 93 in 18 texts of the library
تممcompleteness, wholeness — a thing attaining its full measure (root tmm)
التاء والميم أصل واحد منقاس وهو دليل الكمال
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ت م م that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
21 words7 verbs3 verbal nouns1 participle1 intensive or elative8 other nouns1 relative or abstract
- أَتَمَّ—
- تَمَّhis make, or formation, was, or became, complete, or perfect
- تَمَامthe infant was born at the completion of formation
- تَمَّمَcomplete; conclude
- تَتْمِيمcompletion; realization
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7تَمَّ · أَتَمَّ · تَمَّمَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- تَمَّhis make, or formation, was, or became, complete, or perfectLaneForm IQurʾān ×4LaneIbn Fāris
- أَتَمَّForm IVQurʾān ×16LaneIbn Fāris
- تَمَّمَcomplete; concludeautoForm IIlibrary ×1Lane
- تَامَّthe vying, or contending, with another in completeness, or perfectionLaneForm IIILane
Verbal nouns3تَمَام · تَتْمِيم · إِتْمام
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- تَمَامthe infant was born at the completion of formationLaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×1library ×4LaneIbn Fāris
- تَتْمِيمcompletion; realizationautoForm II · Lane: inf. n.library ×1LaneIbn Fāris
- إِتْمامcompletion; realizationautoForm IV · Lane: inf. n.library ×1Lane
Participles1مُتَمِّم
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُتَمِّمactive, Form IILane
Intensives, qualities and the elative1تَمِيم
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns8تَمِيمَة · تُمَام · تِمَام
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 13 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 · 170Tamma (تم) 'the thing' — yatimmu, tamāman (completely).
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 · 393Tamma (تم) 'the thing' — tamāman.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Tā' and mīm form one single, regular (analogous) root, and it indicates completeness (kamāl).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Tamām (تمام) of a thing is its reaching a limit such that it needs nothing external to it;
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 · 711Tamma (تم) 'the thing' — yatimmu, with the forms tamman, tamman, tamāmatan, tamāman, tamāmatan, tamāman, tamāman, and tammatan.
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLane · 1876English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
E. W. Lane (d. 1876), An Arabic-English Lexicon. English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
Lane, Arabic-English Lexiconread Lane's entry online ↗
Technical definitions2 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
الاسم التام
الاسم الذي نصب لتمامه؛ أي لاستغنائه عن الإضافة، وتمامه بأربعة أشياء: بالتنوين، أو بالإضافة، أو بنون التثنية، أو الجمع.
Al-ism al-tāmm (الاسم التام) [the complete noun]: the noun that is set up for its completeness, i.e., its independence from need for an iḍāfah (construct relation). Its completeness comes about through four things: through tanwīn (nunation), or through iḍāfah, or through the dual nūn, or through the plural [suffix]. AI
التتميم
هو أن يأتي في كلام لا يوهم خلاف المقصود بفضلة لنكتة، كالمبالغة، نحو قوله تعالى: {ويطعمون الطعام على حبه} ، أي: ويطعمونه على حبه والاحتياج إليه.
Al-tatmīm (التتميم) [amplification/completion]: this is when, in speech that does not suggest a meaning contrary to what is intended, an extra element (faḍlah) is added for some rhetorical point, such as emphasis (mubālaghah) — as in His saying, Exalted is He: 'and they feed the food, despite love of it (ʿalā ḥubbihi), [to the needy]' — i.e., they feed it despite [their own] love of it and need for it. AI
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all their orders. Choose one.
ت م م
التاء والميم أصل واحد منقاس وهو دليل الكمال
t-m: one root, regular, which is an indication of completeness. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Quran ×22
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
- تtāʾtongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiceless, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- مmīmbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- مmīmbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · 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
ت
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا مخرج الطاء، والدال، والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26559 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا، مخرج الطاء والدال والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 982 ↗
م
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء، والميم، والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Sībawayh, line 26563 ↗
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء والميم والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Ibn Jinnī, line 986 ↗
م
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء، والميم، والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Sībawayh, line 26563 ↗
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء والميم والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Ibn Jinnī, line 986 ↗
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
ت
Spheres 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 2582م
Level of existence: الإنسان · the human being
Divine Name: الجامع · al-Jāmiʿ, the Gatherer
Lunar mansion: المؤخر · al-Muʾakhkhar
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62119Spheres 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 2582م
Level of existence: الإنسان · the human being
Divine Name: الجامع · al-Jāmiʿ, the Gatherer
Lunar mansion: المؤخر · al-Muʾakhkhar
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62119Spheres 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
ت
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم للخير الكثير العظيم.
It is a name for abundant, great good.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للقليل البارز.
It is a name for the small, protruding/manifest thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم لما صنع وأبرز.
It is a name for what has been made and brought forth.
م
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع المكونات.
It is all created beings.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العزيز القليل كماء العين، ومنه قيل مومو.
It is the precious, scarce thing, like the water of the eye; from it comes the expression 'mūmū'.
With kasra ـِ
فهي نور الذات ظاهرا كما في العين، وباطنا كما في القلب.
It is the light of the self, outwardly as in the eye and inwardly as in the heart.
م
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع المكونات.
It is all created beings.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العزيز القليل كماء العين، ومنه قيل مومو.
It is the precious, scarce thing, like the water of the eye; from it comes the expression 'mūmū'.
With kasra ـِ
فهي نور الذات ظاهرا كما في العين، وباطنا كما في القلب.
It is the light of the self, outwardly as in the eye and inwardly as in the heart.
Two-letter nucleus3 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterت م
Ibn Fāris groups his roots under two-letter chapters (“the X and the Y and what makes them three”). These are the roots of this root's chapter with the core sense he gives each. Setting them side by side is our juxtaposition; he does not himself draw a shared meaning. His chapter heading, line 4333 ↗
In the sister scriptsHebrew ת מ מSyriac ܬ ܡ ܡ
| Arabic | ت م م |
| Hebrew | ת מ מ |
| Syriac | ܬ ܡ ܡ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩩 𐩣 𐩣 |
| Phoenician | 𐤕 𐤌 𐤌 |
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 lexiconIbn Fāris states the root is a single, regular (منقاس) sense-line meaning completion: تمّ الشيء = it became complete (كمل), and أتممتُه = I completed it;plausible
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Ibn Fāris states the root is a single, regular (منقاس) sense-line meaning completion: تمّ الشيء = it became complete (كمل), and أتممتُه = I completed it; he extends this to تميمة (an amulet, as if 'the completion of the cure sought'), تميم (something hard/firm), متمّ (a pregnant woman near full term), ليل التمام (the longest/'complete' night), and تتميم الأيسار (giving gambling-companions their full due share without deduction). Lane, representing the later dictionary tradition, confirms تمّ / تمام as the thing being complete, entire, whole, full, free of deficiency, sometimes rising to 'consummate' or 'perfect'. Across both sources the semantic core is stable and unbroken from earliest to latest attestation: full measure, without lack.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris · Lane
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root ت‑م‑م
- Lane, Lexicon, root ت‑م‑م
Letters & soundIn the tables given, ت (fatḥa) is a name for abundant, great good, with no akbarī sphere-correlate supplied;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the tables given, ت (fatḥa) is a name for abundant, great good, with no akbarī sphere-correlate supplied; م (fatḥa) signifies all created beings (jamīʿ al-khalq), and elsewhere the human being (al-insān) specifically. Read together in تمّ, this would suggest 'abundant good' realized in/through 'the human' or 'created beings' — consonant with the Akbarian reading below, where Adam's existence is what 'completes' the cosmos — but this remains a speculative resonance drawn from al-Dabbāgh's and the akbarī letter-tables, not an established etymological or linguistic claim.
Draws on: dabbagh_fatha · akbari198
Root structureIbn Fāris's ت‑م nucleus-siblings include تمه (a thing's alteration/change) and تمك (a thing's rising/height), alongside تمر (dates, and one who deals in or feeds dates) — a loose family without an obviously shared semantic thread beyond the shared biliteral base.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's ت‑م nucleus-siblings include تمه (a thing's alteration/change) and تمك (a thing's rising/height), alongside تمر (dates, and one who deals in or feeds dates) — a loose family without an obviously shared semantic thread beyond the shared biliteral base. The permutation table shows تمم itself well attested (22 Qurʾānic occurrences) while متم and ممت are entirely unattested, so the geminate root تمّ appears to stand largely alone rather than participating in a rich permutation family; Ibn Jinnī's greater-derivation method finds little purchase here for lack of attested counterparts.
Draws on: maqayis-nucleus · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, nucleus تم
Semitic kin & loanwordsThis root has a solid Common Semitic cognate: Hebrew תמם (tāmam), 'to be complete, finished,' and the adjective תָּמִים (tāmîm), 'whole, complete, unblemished, perfect' (used of sacrificial animals and of moral integrity), match Arabic تمّ / تمام closely in both form and sense.well attested
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
This root has a solid Common Semitic cognate: Hebrew תמם (tāmam), 'to be complete, finished,' and the adjective תָּמִים (tāmîm), 'whole, complete, unblemished, perfect' (used of sacrificial animals and of moral integrity), match Arabic تمّ / تمام closely in both form and sense. This is inherited shared Semitic vocabulary, not a loanword in either direction.
Draws on: comparative
Quranic exegesisAt 2:124, Ibrāhīm's trials are described as fa-atammahunna, 'he fulfilled/completed them,' which al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read as Ibrāhīm bringing every one of the commanded tests to full, unblemished completion.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 2:124, Ibrāhīm's trials are described as fa-atammahunna, 'he fulfilled/completed them,' which al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read as Ibrāhīm bringing every one of the commanded tests to full, unblemished completion. At 6:115, tammat kalimatu rabbika ṣidqan wa-ʿadlan ('the word of your Lord has been completed/fulfilled in truthfulness and justice') is read by al-Rāzī and al-Zamakhsharī as the full and perfect realization of God's decree and promise, lacking nothing in its truth or its justice — a use of تمّ close to 'consummated' rather than merely 'finished'. At 2:150 and elsewhere itmām al-niʿma ('the completion of [God's] favor') is a recurrent Qurʾānic formula the exegetes read as favor brought to its fullest, most perfect extent, not merely granted in part.
Philosophy & kalāmAvicenna distinguishes tamām from kamāl in the Ilāhiyyāt: tamām is a thing's attainment of what is necessary and sufficient for its species-existence (the minimum completeness making it what it is), while kamāl is a further, more properly 'perfective' excess beyond bare sufficiency, proper to some things and not others.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Avicenna distinguishes tamām from kamāl in the Ilāhiyyāt: tamām is a thing's attainment of what is necessary and sufficient for its species-existence (the minimum completeness making it what it is), while kamāl is a further, more properly 'perfective' excess beyond bare sufficiency, proper to some things and not others. The distinction lets falsafa speak of degrees of completion short of full perfection, tamām marking the floor of adequacy rather than the ceiling of excellence.
Draws on: falsafa-usage
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī writes that the human being, as the temporally-originated-yet-eternal reality (al-insān al-ḥādith al-azalī) and the ever-renewed everlasting engendering (al-nashʾ al-dāʾim al-abadī), is the decisive, all-comprehending word (al-kalima al-fāṣila al-jāmiʿa): fa-tamma al-ʿālam bi-wujūdihi — 'and so the World became complete by his existence.' Adam/Man stands to the World as the bezel-stone (faṣṣ) stands to the ring (khātam): the World's tamām, its completion, is achieved specifically through the human presence, which is why the human is called khātam/khalīfa.well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī writes that the human being, as the temporally-originated-yet-eternal reality (al-insān al-ḥādith al-azalī) and the ever-renewed everlasting engendering (al-nashʾ al-dāʾim al-abadī), is the decisive, all-comprehending word (al-kalima al-fāṣila al-jāmiʿa): fa-tamma al-ʿālam bi-wujūdihi — 'and so the World became complete by his existence.' Adam/Man stands to the World as the bezel-stone (faṣṣ) stands to the ring (khātam): the World's tamām, its completion, is achieved specifically through the human presence, which is why the human is called khātam/khalīfa. This is one of the clearest technical loci in the Fuṣūṣ for تمّ, tying completion directly to the doctrine of al-insān al-kāmil.
Draws on: fass-adam-excerpt
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference