Root · 30 in the Quran · 9 in 7 texts of the library
سعيPer Ibn Fāris's own chapter: a portion of time passing, with a derivative branch meaning … (root sy)
السين والعين والحرف المعتل وهو الواو كلمتان إن صحتا فذكر عن الكسائي مضى سعو من الليل أي قطع منه وذكر ابن دريد أن السعو …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of س ع ي that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
3 words1 verb1 place or instrument1 other noun
- سَعَىstrive; pursue
- سَعْيendeavor; pursuit
- مَسْعَىeffort; endeavor
The whole family3 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs1سَعَى
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Form I vowels: فَعَلَ يَفْعَلُ (a – a; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- سَعَىstrive; pursueautoForm IQurʾān ×20library ×5Ibn Fāris
Place, time and instrument1مَسْعَى
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مَسْعَىeffort; endeavorautonoun of place or timelibrary ×1
Other nouns1سَعْي
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- سَعْيendeavor; pursuitautonounQurʾān ×10library ×1
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 3 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-saʿy (السعي): running that is not vigorous/fast.
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 · 393Saʿā al-rajulu yasʿā saʿyan (سعى الرجل يسعى سعيا), i.e., he ran;
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Sīn, ʿayn, and the weak letter which is wāw: two words, if they are sound.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-saʿy (السعي): walking swiftly, which is less [intense] than running (al-ʿadw);
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
AI AI translation of the Arabic below
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
س ع ي
السين والعين والحرف المعتل وهو الواو كلمتان إن صحتا فذكر عن الكسائي مضى سعو من الليل أي قطع منه وذكر ابن دريد أن السعو الشمع وفيه نظر والمسعاة في الكرم والجود والسعاية في أخذ الصدقات وسعاية العبد إذا كوتب أن يسعى فيما يف …
s-ʿ-w [the weak letter being wāw]: two words, if they are sound. It is mentioned on the authority of al-Kisā'ī: 'maḍā saʿwun min al-layl,' meaning a portion of it passed, and Ibn Durayd mentioned that al-saʿw is wax, though this is doubtful. Al-masʿāh relates to generosity and nobility, and al-siʿāya relates to collecting the alms-tax, and the siʿāya of a slave, when he has made a contract [for his freedom], is that he strive in what... AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lane ↗Quran ×30
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
- سsīntongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- عʿaynmiddle of the throat · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle of the tongue · 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
س
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 ↗
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 ↗
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 ↗
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
س
Level of existence: ما ظهر في الماء · what appears in water
Divine Name: المحيي · al-Muḥyī, the Life-Giver
Lunar mansion: النعائم · al-Naʿāʾim
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62110Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
السين والشين فطبعهما الحرارة واليبوسة
Sīn and shīn: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2581ع
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 ↗
ي
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 2582Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
س
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء المليح الذي من طبعه الرقة.
It is an indication of the comely thing whose nature is delicacy.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القبيح الخشن، أو إشارة إلى سواد حسا ومعنى.
It is an indication of the ugly, rough thing, or of blackness, sensible and figurative.
With kasra ـِ
وبالكسر إشارة إلى الشيء الطابع وتكون الإشارة منه.
With kasra it is an indication of the impressing/stamping thing, and the indication proceeds from it.
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.
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.
Two-letter nucleus8 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterس ع
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 13737 ↗
- سعفالسين والعين والفاء أصلان متباينان يدل أحدهما على يبس شيء وتشعثه والآخر على مواتاة الشيءL13738
- سعلالسين والعين واللام أصل يدل على صخب وعلو صوتL13745
- سعمالسين والعين والميم كلمة واحدة فالسعم السيرL13750
- سعنالسين والعين والنون كلمة واحدة يقولون ما له سعنة ولامعنة أي ما له قليل ولا كثير ويقال إن كان صحيحا إن السعن شيء كالدلوL13751
- سعوالسين والعين والحرف المعتل وهو الواو كلمتان إن صحتا فذكر عن الكسائي مضى سعو من الليل أي قطع منه وذكر ابن دريد أن السعو الشمع وفيه نظر والمسعاة في الكرL13753
- سعدالسين والعين والدال أصل يدل على خير وسرور خلاف النحس فالسعد اليمن في الأمر والسعدان نبات من أفضل المرعى يقولون في أمثالهم مرعى ولا كالسعدان وسعود النجQ 2 · L13758
- سعرالسين والعين واراء أصل واحد يدل على اشتعال الشيء واتقاده وارتفاعهQ 19 · L13769
- سعطالسين والعين والطاء أصل وهو أن يوجر الإنسان الدواء ثم يحمل عليه فمن ذلك أسعطته الدواء فاستعطه والمسعط الذي يجعل فيه السعوط والسعوط هو الدواء وأصل بنائL13784
In the sister scriptsHebrew ס/ש ע יSyriac ܣ/ܫ ܥ ܝ
| Arabic | س ع ي |
| Hebrew | ס/ש ע י |
| Syriac | ܣ/ܫ ܥ ܝ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩯/𐩦 𐩲 𐩺 |
| Phoenician | 𐤎/𐤔 𐤏 𐤉 |
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 gives saʿy as ʿadw laysa bi-shadīd, a running that is not intense, then generalizes it to any deed good or bad, glossing 'al-saʿy al-ʿamal, ay al-kasb' (work, earning), and names the zakāt-collector al-sāʿī.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives saʿy as ʿadw laysa bi-shadīd, a running that is not intense, then generalizes it to any deed good or bad, glossing 'al-saʿy al-ʿamal, ay al-kasb' (work, earning), and names the zakāt-collector al-sāʿī. Al-Jawharī confirms saʿā = ʿadā (ran) and also = ʿamila wa kasaba (worked, earned), extends it to informing against someone (saʿā bihi ilā l-wālī) and to a mukātab slave's effort to buy his freedom (saʿāya). Ibn Fāris's own asl, oddly, centers on a passing stretch of night (from al-Kisāʾī) and reaches the 'pursuing' sense only by branch — 'kaʾannahu saʿā fī dhālika' of a man who consorts with a slave-woman — while still registering musāʿāh as munificence and siʿāyah as the slave's earning of manumission. Al-Rāghib sharpens the semantic core: al-saʿy is brisk walking, less than outright running (ʿadw), and is used for zeal/striving in any matter, good or evil, though he notes it is mostly used of praiseworthy acts, citing Q2:114, 5:64, 2:205, 53:39–40, 92:4 and 17:19.
Draws on: al-Khalīl/al-ʿAyn · al-Jawharī/al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Ibn Fāris/Maqāyīs · al-Rāghib/Mufradāt
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, s.v. سعي
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, s.v. سعي
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, s.v. سعو/سعي
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, s.v. سعي
Letters & soundIn the akbarī letter-correspondences, س is 'what appears in water' and, on the fatḥa, 'the comely thing whose nature is delicate';speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the akbarī letter-correspondences, س is 'what appears in water' and, on the fatḥa, 'the comely thing whose nature is delicate'; ع is 'nature' itself, and on the fatḥa 'a name for arrival or departure'; ي is 'the First Heaven,' and on the fatḥa a vocative/emphatic particle. A sound-symbolist could read the sequence س-ع-ي as delicate appearance moving through nature's arrival-and-departure toward an emphatic calling-forth — apt enough for a word meaning purposive striving toward a goal. This is offered only as a resonance available to the theorists named; mainstream historical linguistics treats such letter-meaning correspondences as suggestive at most, without demonstrated causal role in word-formation.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letters-in-the-Breath (akbari198) · al-Dabbāgh fatḥa readings
- Ibn ʿArabī / al-Dabbāgh letter-tables (akbari198)
Root structureAmong the س-ع chapter's siblings — سعف (dryness/tattering), سعل (loud clamor), سعم (fast travel), سعن (a small container, or 'neither little nor much'), سعد (good fortune), سعر (blazing), سعط (dosing with medicine) — no single semantic thread unites سعو/سعي beyond the bare letter-pair;plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Among the س-ع chapter's siblings — سعف (dryness/tattering), سعل (loud clamor), سعم (fast travel), سعن (a small container, or 'neither little nor much'), سعد (good fortune), سعر (blazing), سعط (dosing with medicine) — no single semantic thread unites سعو/سعي beyond the bare letter-pair; Ibn Fāris himself treats it as two possibly-unrelated words. The greater-derivation permutations are more suggestive: عسي/عسى (to hope, to expect) shares the same three letters transposed, and the resonance between 'striving toward' (saʿy) and 'hoping for' (ʿasā) is the kind of pairing Ibn Jinnī's khaṣāʾiṣ looks for, though it is a juxtaposition, not an asserted etymology. سيع, glossed as water running openly over the ground, likewise echoes the semantic field of unimpeded forward motion that saʿy names for a person's gait.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris nucleusSiblings س-ع · permutations · Ibn Jinnī al-khaṣāʾiṣ
- Wiktionary, Appendix:Arabic roots/س_ع_ي (link not verified)
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, bāb al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsSyriac ܣܥܐ (sʿā) carries a closely parallel sense, 'to strive after, desire, endeavor,' making it a plausible common Semitic cognate for Arabic saʿā rather than the direction of borrowing running either way.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Syriac ܣܥܐ (sʿā) carries a closely parallel sense, 'to strive after, desire, endeavor,' making it a plausible common Semitic cognate for Arabic saʿā rather than the direction of borrowing running either way. No confident Hebrew or Akkadian cognate is identifiable for this specific root-sense (Hebrew has no securely related שׂ-ע-י verb of striving). The Arabic word is not a loanword; it belongs to the inherited Semitic stock, if the Syriac comparison holds.
Draws on: Syriac lexicon
- Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, s.v. ܣܥܐ
Quranic exegesisAt Q2:114 ('saʿā fī kharābihā') the exegetes read saʿy as active effort directed at a goal — here the destruction of mosques — showing the root is morally neutral and takes its color from context.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q2:114 ('saʿā fī kharābihā') the exegetes read saʿy as active effort directed at a goal — here the destruction of mosques — showing the root is morally neutral and takes its color from context. At Q2:205 ('idhā tawallā saʿā fī l-arḍ li-yufsida fīhā') al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī debate whether saʿy here means literal hurrying-about or general striving/effort at corruption, al-Rāzī favoring the latter as covering both speech and deed. At Q17:19 ('wa-saʿā lahā saʿyahā') the exegetes read saʿy as the totality of a believer's directed effort toward the Hereafter, matched by shukr (gratitude/reward) for it. Al-Rāghib's Mufradāt entry, itself a work of exegetical lexicography, catalogs these and further instances (5:64, 53:39–40, 92:4), concluding the root is used mostly, though not exclusively, of praiseworthy exertion.
Reference