Root · 5 in the Quran · 10 in 4 texts of the library
جوع (root jw)
الجيم والواو والعين كلمة واحدة فالجوع ضد الشبع ويقال عام مجاعة ومجوعة
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ج و ع that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
15 words5 verbs2 verbal nouns2 participles2 places and instruments1 intensive or elative2 other nouns1 plural
- جُوعyear in which is hunger, or emptiness of the belly
- جاعَhe was, or became, hungry
- أَجاعَhe constrained him to be hungry, or empty in the belly
- تجوّعَhe made himself hungry, or empty in the belly, intentionally, or purposely
- استجاعَhe showed hunger
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5جاعَ · أَجاعَ · جَوَّعَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- جاعَhe was, or became, hungryLaneForm IQurʾān ×1library ×1Lane
- أَجاعَhe constrained him to be hungry, or empty in the bellyLaneForm IVlibrary ×1Lane
- جَوَّعَLane: see Form IVForm IILaneIbn Fāris
- تجوّعَhe made himself hungry, or empty in the belly, intentionally, or purposelyLaneForm VLane
- استجاعَhe showed hungerLaneForm XLane
Verbal nouns2جَوْع · تَجْوِيع
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles2جَائِع · مُسْتَجِيع
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Place, time and instrument2مَجْوَعَة · مَجَاع
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative1جَوْعَان
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- جَوْعَانintensive (faʿlān)Lane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 14 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.
- Attested: مَجْوَعَة, noun of place (with -a) (Lane, Ibn Fāris)
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
Ibn Fāris · 395الجيم والواو والعين كلمة واحدة فالجوع ضد الشبع ويقال عام مجاعة ومجوعة
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ج و ع
الجيم والواو والعين كلمة واحدة فالجوع ضد الشبع ويقال عام مجاعة ومجوعة
j-w-ʿ is a single word. Al-jūʿ is the opposite of satiety. And it is said: ʿām majāʿah and majūʿah. AI
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
- جjīmmiddle of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- عʿaynmiddle of the throat · 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
ج
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26553 ↗
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى، مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 974 ↗
و
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 ↗
ع
ومن أوسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26548–26549 ↗
ومن وسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 970 ↗
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
ج
Level of existence: الفلك الأطلس فلك البروج · the Atlas (starless) sphere, the sphere of the zodiacal signs
Divine Name: الغني · al-Ghanī, the Independent
Lunar mansion: الطرف · al-Ṭarf
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62085Spheres 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 2582و
Level of existence: تعيين الرتب والمقامات والمنازل · the determination of ranks, stations and waystations
Divine Name: رفيع الدرجات · Rafīʿ al-Darajāt, Exalted in Degrees
Lunar mansion: الرشا · al-Rashāʾ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62121Spheres 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 2582ع
Level of existence: الطبيعة · Nature
Divine Name: الباطن · The Inward (al-Bāṭin)
Lunar mansion: الثريا · al-Thurayyā (the Pleiades)
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 63825Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ج
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي نبوة أو ولاية إذا كان قبلها أو بعدها ما يدل على ذلك، وإلا فهي للخير الذي لا يزول أبدا.
It is prophethood or sainthood (walāya) if something before or after it indicates that. Otherwise it is for the good that never ceases.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الخير الذي يؤكل أو ينتفع الناس منه.
It is the good that is eaten, or from which people derive benefit.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الخير القليل الذي في الذات من نور الإيمان.
It is the small good within the self from the light of faith.
و
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة في الإنسان مثل العروق والأصابع وما أشبه ذلك.
It is the intertwined things in the human being, such as veins, fingers and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الأشياء المباينة لبني آدم مثل الأفلاك والجبال وما أشبه ذلك
It is things distinct from the children of Adam, such as the celestial spheres, mountains and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة المستقذرة أو المبغوضة كالأمعاء ونحوها.
It is intertwined things that are filthy or detested, such as the intestines and the like.
ع
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم لقدوم أو رحيل.
It is a name for arrival or departure.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للساكن في الذات التي تقوم به.
It is a name for that which dwells in the self and by which the self subsists.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم لخبث الذات.
It is a name for the foulness of the self.
Two-letter nucleus10 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterج و
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 6025 ↗
- جويالجيم والواء والياء أصل يدل على كراهة الشيءL6026
- جوبالجيم والواو والباء أصل واحد وهو خرق الشيءQ 43 · L6030
- جوحالجيم والواو والحاء أصل واحد وهو الاستئصالL6047
- جوخالجيم والواو والخاء ليس أصلا هو عندي لأن بعضه معرب وفي بعضه نظر فإن كان صحيحا فهو جنس من الخرقL6048
- جودالجيم والواو والدال أصل واحد وهو التسمح بالشيء وكثرة العطاءQ 1 · L6052
- جورالجيم والواو والراء أصل واحد وهو الميل عن الطريقQ 13 · L6056
- جوزالجيم والواو والزاء أصلان أحدهما قطع الشيء والآخر وسط الشيء فأما الوسط فجوز كل شيء وسطه والجوزاء الشاة يبيض وسطها والجوزاء نجمQ 5 · L6063
- جوسالجيم والواو والسين أصل واحد وهو تخلل الشيءQ 1 · L6075
- جوظالجيم والواو والظاء أصل واحد لنعت قبيح لا يمدح بهL6078
- جوفالجيم والواو والفاء كلمة واحدة وهي جوف الشيءQ 1 · L6083
In the sister scriptsHebrew ג ו עSyriac ܓ ܘ ܥ
| Arabic | ج و ع |
| Hebrew | ג ו ע |
| Syriac | ܓ ܘ ܥ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩴 𐩥 𐩲 |
| Phoenician | 𐤂 𐤅 𐤏 |
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.
Reference