Root · 10 in the Quran · 90 in 19 texts of the library
زيلnot an original root; the yāʾ stands in for a wāw; tazāyul means mutual separation. (root zyl)
الزاي والياء واللام ليس أصلا لكن الياء فيه مبدلة من واو وقد مضى ذكره وذكرت هنالك كلمات اللفظ فالتزايل التباين
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ز ي ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
19 words7 verbs6 verbal nouns1 participle2 places and instruments1 intensive or elative2 other nouns
- زَالَتَcease; stop being
- أَزالَhe removed it
- زَيَّلَhe separated it
- تَزَيَّلُthey became separated much, or greatly, or widely
- زايَلَhe separated himself from him
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7زَالَتَ · أَزالَ · زَيَّلَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- زَالَتَcease; stop beingautoForm IQurʾān ×8library ×56Lane
- أَزالَhe removed itLaneForm IVlibrary ×6Lane
- زَيَّلَhe separated itLaneForm IIQurʾān ×1LaneIbn Fāris
- تَزَيَّلُthey became separated much, or greatly, or widelyLaneForm VQurʾān ×1Lane
Verbal nouns6تَزَايُل · زَيْل · تَزَيُّل
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles1مُزَايِل
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُزَايِلthe beloved, or the friend, who is in a state of separation, or disunionLaneactive, Form IIILane
Place, time and instrument2مِزْيَال · مِزْيَل
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.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 · 170Al-zawl (الزول): the light-hearted, witty young man.
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-zawl (الزول): wonder/amazement.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Zāy, yāʾ, and lām is not a [true] root, but the yāʾ in it is substituted from wāw, and this has already been mentioned, and the words of this form were mentioned there.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Al-zawāl (الزوال): passing away, transformation, and vanishing.
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 ↗
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ز ي ل
الزاي والياء واللام ليس أصلا لكن الياء فيه مبدلة من واو وقد مضى ذكره وذكرت هنالك كلمات اللفظ فالتزايل التباين
z-y-l is not a root, but the yā' in it is substituted from a wāw, and this has already been mentioned, and I mentioned there the words of this expression. So al-tazāyul is al-tabāyun (divergence). 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
- زzāytongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiced, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- لlāmedge of the tongue · voiced, in betweenI. 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
ز
ومما بين طرف اللسان وفويق الثنايا مخرج الزاي، والسين، والصاد
From between the tip of the tongue and just above the front teeth is the place of the zāy, the sīn and the ṣād. Sībawayh, line 26560 ↗
ومما بين الثنايا وطرف اللسان، مخرج الصاد والزاي والسين
From between the front teeth and the tip of the tongue is the place of the ṣād, the zāy and the sīn. Ibn Jinnī, line 983 ↗
ي
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 ↗
ل
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان، من بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى، مما فويق الضاحك والناب والرباعية والثنية، مخرج اللام
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, just above the premolar, the canine, the lateral and the central incisor, is the place of the lām. Ibn Jinnī, lines 977–978 ↗
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
ز
Level of existence: ما يظهر في ركن الهواء · what appears in the pillar (element) of air
Divine Name: الحي · the Living (al-Ḥayy)
Lunar mansion: الشولة · al-Shawla
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64951Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2570 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
منها دون الألف فطبعها الحرارة واليبوسة
[Zāy and lām] of it, excluding alif: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2577ي
Level of existence: السماء الأولى · The First Heaven
Divine Name: الرب · The Lord (al-Rabb)
Lunar mansion: الخرتان · al-Kharatān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64500Spheres 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 2582ل
Level of existence: السماء الثالثة · the third heaven
Divine Name: القاهر · the Subduer (al-Qāhir)
Lunar mansion: العوا · al-ʿAwwā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64654Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2576 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
منها دون الألف فطبعها الحرارة واليبوسة
[Zāy and lām] of it, excluding alif: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2577Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ز
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم للشيء الذي إذا دخل على الشيء ضره، وقال مرة: اسم للشيء وما يتحرز منه.
It is a name for the thing that harms another thing when it enters upon it. On one occasion he said: a name for the thing and what one guards against.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى القبيح الذي فيه ضرر كالكبائر.
It is an indication of the ugly thing that contains harm, such as the major sins.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى القبيح الذي لا ضرر فيه كالصغائر والشبهات والنجاسة.
It is an indication of the ugly thing that contains no harm, such as minor sins, doubtful matters and ritual impurity.
ي
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي للنداء، وقد يؤكد بها.
It is for the vocative (calling), and it may be used for emphasis.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا يثبت كالبرق ونحوه.
It is an indication of the thing that does not remain fixed, like lightning and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يستحيا به أو يستحيا منه كالعورة.
It is an indication of the thing that causes shame, or of which one is ashamed, like the private parts.
ل
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي حصول المتكلم على شيء عظيم، وتكون إشارة إلى شيء عظيم.
It is the speaker's attaining of something great, and it serves as an indication of something great.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا نهاية له.
It is an indication of the thing that has no end.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة من المتكلم إلى وجود ذاته أو إلى ذاته.
It is an indication by the speaker of the existence of his self, or of his self.
Two-letter nucleus6 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterز ي
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 13312 ↗
- زيبالزاء والياء والباء أصل يدل على خفة ونشاط وما يشبه ذلك والأصل الخفة يقولون الأزيب النشاط ويقولون مر فلان وله أزيب إذا مر مرا سريعا ومن ذلك قولهم للأمرL13313
- زيتالزاء والياء والتاء كلمة واحدة وهي الزيت معروف ويقال زته إذا دهنته بالزيت وهو مزيوتQ 7 · L13320
- زيحالزاء والياء والحاء أصل واحد وهو زوال الشيء وتنحيهL13321
- زيجالزاء والياء والجيم ليس بشيء على أنهم يسمون خيط البناء زيجا فما أدري أعربي هو أم لاL13323
- زيدالزاء والياء والدال أصل يدل على الفضل يقولون زاد الشيء يزيد فهو زائد وهؤلاء قوم زيد على كذا أي يزيدونQ 61 · L13325
- زينالزاء والياء والنون أصل صحيح يدل على حسن الشيء وتحسينه فالزين نقيض الشينQ 46 · L13346
In the sister scriptsHebrew ז י לSyriac ܙ ܝ ܠ
| Arabic | ز ي ل |
| Hebrew | ז י ל |
| Syriac | ܙ ܝ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩸 𐩺 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤆 𐤉 𐤋 |
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 lexiconThe excerpts from al-Khalīl and al-Jawharī fall under z-w-l.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
The excerpts from al-Khalīl and al-Jawharī fall under z-w-l. Al-Khalīl gives zawl as a light, graceful youth, muzāwala as working at a thing, and zawāl as the passing of kingship and the sun's declining. Al-Jawharī adds zawl as 'a marvel', zawwāl as one who moves much but covers little ground, and zāʾila as anything that moves. Ibn Fāris denies z-y-l original status and keeps only tazāyul as separation, citing fa-zayyalnā baynahum (10:28). Ibn Manẓūr defines zawāl as going, change and fading away, and notes dialect forms such as mā zīla for mā zāla. Lane treats zāla-hu, imperfect yazīlu, as 'he put it apart, removed or separated it', a sense distinct from zāla yazūlu, 'it ceased or departed'.
Draws on: al-Khalīl · al-Jawharī · Ibn Fāris · Ibn Manẓūr · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root ز ي ل (link not verified)
- Wiktionary, Arabic root ز و ل ↗
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. زيل
Letters & soundZāy is one of the sibilant (ṣafīr) letters.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Zāy is one of the sibilant (ṣafīr) letters. An imsās reading might hear in it a slipping or sliding away, but Ibn Jinnī offers no such reading of this root. In the data given, Ibn ʿArabī assigns yāʾ to the First Heaven. Al-Dabbāgh reads zāy as that which harms what it enters (or that against which one guards), yāʾ as calling or emphasis, and lām as reaching something great. None of these connects obviously to separation. Mainstream linguistics treats such correspondences as suggestive at most.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letter ranks · al-Dabbāgh · Ibn Jinnī imsās
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (link not verified)
- Aḥmad b. al-Mubārak, al-Ibrīz (sayings of al-Dabbāgh)
Root structureIbn Fāris's z-y chapter contains zyb (lightness and briskness), zyt (oil), zyḥ (the removal and withdrawal of a thing), zyj (doubtful, possibly non-Arabic), zyd (excess) and zyn (beauty).uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's z-y chapter contains zyb (lightness and briskness), zyt (oil), zyḥ (the removal and withdrawal of a thing), zyj (doubtful, possibly non-Arabic), zyd (excess) and zyn (beauty). Zyḥ sits close in meaning to zyl as removal and setting aside, and zyb's lightness recalls al-Khalīl's zawl, the light youth. Since Ibn Fāris derives zyl from z-w-l, these parallels across the z-y nucleus are juxtapositions only. None of the permutations is attested, so Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation has nothing to work on here.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris chapter siblings · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha, bāb al-zāy wa-l-yāʾ
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian can be offered for z-y-l or for z-w-l in the sense of ceasing or separating.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian can be offered for z-y-l or for z-w-l in the sense of ceasing or separating. Hebrew zûl ('to lavish, pour out') and zālal ('to be worthless') look similar, but their link to the Arabic is unproven. The word is native Arabic.
Draws on: no confident cognate
Quranic exegesisAt 10:28 (fa-zayyalnā baynahum) al-Ṭabarī reads zayyalnā as 'We separated and set apart' the associators from those they worshipped.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 10:28 (fa-zayyalnā baynahum) al-Ṭabarī reads zayyalnā as 'We separated and set apart' the associators from those they worshipped. Al-Zamakhsharī derives the verb from zāla yazīlu, 'to set apart', distinguishes it from zāla yazūlu, and takes the doubled form as intensive. At 48:25 (law tazayyalū) the exegetes read the verb as tamayyazū: had the believing men and women in Mecca been distinguished from the unbelievers, the unbelievers would have been punished. The remaining occurrences are negated continuatives, such as lā yazālūna yuqātilūnakum (2:217) and lā tazālu taṭṭaliʿu (5:13), in the sense 'they will not cease'. Grammarians connect this mā zāla, imperfect yazālu, with this root, and keep it apart from yazūlu.
Akbarian readingIn the chapter the negated continuative marks permanence.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In the chapter the negated continuative marks permanence. The theophany that the shaped form is readied to receive is 'perpetual, which never ceased and never ceases' (lam yazal wa-lā yazālu). The world 'does not cease' to be guarded while the Perfect Man is in it. By contrast, idhā zāla ('when he departs') carries the z-w-l sense of leaving, and when he departs the worldly treasury is emptied of what God stored in it. No Iṣṭilāḥ definition is given for the root. The chapter's contrast between what never ceases and what departs fits his wider teaching on continuous self-disclosure (tajallī).
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference