Root · 1 in the Quran · 12 in 5 texts of the library
سيبa root indicating the continuing of a thing and its going on, as water running in its … (root syb)
السين والياء والباء أصل يدل على استمرار شيء وذهابه
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of س ي ب that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
14 words4 verbs2 verbal nouns1 participle4 other nouns3 plurals
- اِنْسابَflow; stream
- سَابَit ran
- سيّبَhe left, left alone, or neglected, a thing
- سَائِبrunning water
- سِيبplace, or channel, in which water runs
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4سَابَ · اِنْسابَ · سيّبَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Verbal nouns2سَيْب · سَيَبَان
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles1سَائِب
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- سَائِبrunning waterLaneactive, Form ILane
Other nouns4سَيَاب · سَيَابَة · سُيَّاب
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 8 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 · 170As-sayb (السيب): kindness/favor (al-ma'rūf) and a gift.
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 · 393As-sayb (السيب): a gift.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters sīn, yā', and bā' form a root indicating the continuity of something and its going away/flowing off.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502As-sā'ibah (السائبة): the [she-camel] that is set loose (tasību) to pasture, not being turned away from a watering-trough nor from fodder;
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 · 711An-Nihāyah of Ibn al-Athīr: In the ḥadīth of Ibn 'Umar, may God be pleased with them both, as-sawbiyyah (السوبية) is mentioned — with ḍamma on the sīn, kasra on the single-dotted bā', followed by a yā' with two dots bene
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.
س ي ب
السين والياء والباء أصل يدل على استمرار شيء وذهابه
s-y-b: a root indicating the continuation of something and its going. 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
- سsīntongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- بbāʾbetween the lips · voiced, stopSīb. · 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 ↗
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 ↗
ب
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
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 2581ي
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 2582ب
Level of existence: الجن · the jinn
Divine Name: اللطيف · al-Laṭīf, the Subtle
Lunar mansion: الفرع المقدم · al-Farʿ al-Muqaddam
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62118Spheres 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.
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.
ب
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي هو في غاية العز أو في غاية الذل.
It is an indication of the thing that is at the utmost of might or at the utmost of abasement.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة معها قبض.
It is an indication accompanied by contraction (qabḍ).
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما دخل أو هو داخل على الذات.
It is an indication of what has entered, or is entering, upon the self.
Two-letter nucleus4 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterس 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 14355 ↗
- سيبالسين والياء والباء أصل يدل على استمرار شيء وذهابهQ 1 · L14356
- سيحالسين والياء والحاء أصل صحيح وقياسه قياس ما قبلهQ 3 · L14361
- سيدالسين والياء والدال كلمة واحدة وهى السيدL14368
- سيفالسين والياء والفاء أصل يدل على امتداد في شيء وطولL14380
In the sister scriptsHebrew ס/ש י בSyriac ܣ/ܫ ܝ ܒ
| Arabic | س ي ب |
| Hebrew | ס/ש י ב |
| Syriac | ܣ/ܫ ܝ ܒ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩯/𐩦 𐩺 𐩨 |
| Phoenician | 𐤎/𐤔 𐤉 𐤁 |
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 already gathers the whole field: sayb as bounty or gift, sayb as a water-course (sāba al-māʾ yasību, 'the water ran'), the snake that tasību/tansābu 'moving on continuously', sayyabtu al-dābba 'I let the beast go where it would', the sāʾiba as a freed slave left without walāʾ to his manumitter, suyūb as buried treasure (rikāz), and siyāb as unripe dates.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl already gathers the whole field: sayb as bounty or gift, sayb as a water-course (sāba al-māʾ yasību, 'the water ran'), the snake that tasību/tansābu 'moving on continuously', sayyabtu al-dābba 'I let the beast go where it would', the sāʾiba as a freed slave left without walāʾ to his manumitter, suyūb as buried treasure (rikāz), and siyāb as unripe dates. Al-Jawharī adds the pre-Islamic sāʾiba she-camel, let loose for a vow, which is not ridden and whose milk only her young or a guest may drink. He records the report linking it to the baḥīra: after ten female births she was loosed, and her last daughter's ear was slit. Ibn Fāris reduces the root to one principle, a thing continuing and going on, and derives the gift from it ('as though something made to flow to him'). He treats rikāz as a gift God caused to flow to its finder and sets aside siyāb 'unripe dates' as anomalous. Al-Rāghib gives the sāʾiba loosed in pasture after five births and the freed slave, and names the base as sayyabtuhu fa-sāba. The Lisān excerpt supplied here only preserves Ibn al-Athīr's note on sūbiyya, a wheat drink; Lane glosses sāba as 'it ran' (of water) and marks the snake's gliding as tropical.
Draws on: Kitāb al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs · Mufradāt · Lisān · Lane
Letters & soundIn the data supplied, al-Dabbāgh reads sīn as indicating a comely thing of delicate nature and bāʾ as the utmost of might or of abasement.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the data supplied, al-Dabbāgh reads sīn as indicating a comely thing of delicate nature and bāʾ as the utmost of might or of abasement. He takes yāʾ as the vocative, sometimes emphatic. Ibn ʿArabī's correspondences assign yāʾ to the First Heaven; no assignment is given here for sīn or bāʾ. An imsās-style reader might hear the sibilant sīn followed by the long vowel as suited to a smooth, continuous gliding, as of water or a snake. Mainstream linguistics treats such associations as suggestive at most.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh · Ibn ʿArabī letter-correspondences · Ibn Jinnī imsās (general)
Root structureUnder the nucleus s-y, Ibn Fāris explicitly says s-y-ḥ has 'the same analogy as the one before it', so sayb and sayḥ (water running over the surface, roaming) stand together as flowing or ranging freely.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Under the nucleus s-y, Ibn Fāris explicitly says s-y-ḥ has 'the same analogy as the one before it', so sayb and sayḥ (water running over the surface, roaming) stand together as flowing or ranging freely. He glosses s-y-f as extension and length, which sits near the idea of continuation. S-y-d he treats as a single isolated word. Among the permutations, s-b-y means carrying something off from one land to another by force, which contrasts with letting something go its own way. Y-b-s, dryness (four Quranic occurrences), stands opposite to running water. These are juxtapositions only. Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation does not yield a common meaning across the set.
Draws on: Maqāyīs nucleus siblings · permutations
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate of s-y-b in the sense 'to run, flow, be let loose' can be named in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or Epigraphic South Arabian.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate of s-y-b in the sense 'to run, flow, be let loose' can be named in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or Epigraphic South Arabian. The word is well embedded in pre-Islamic Arabian practice (the sāʾiba) and in a broad native derivational family. There is no indication that it is a loanword.
Draws on: no secure cognate
- Wiktionary: Arabic root س ي ب (link not verified)
Quranic exegesisThe single occurrence is Q 5:103, where God denies having instituted the baḥīra, sāʾiba, waṣīla or ḥām.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
The single occurrence is Q 5:103, where God denies having instituted the baḥīra, sāʾiba, waṣīla or ḥām. Al-Ṭabarī collects differing reports on what the sāʾiba was. Most describe a camel released in honour of the idols or under a vow, and exempted from riding, loads and ordinary use. Al-Zamakhsharī describes the practice of vowing that one's camel would be sāʾiba upon recovery from illness or safe return from a journey. Al-Rāzī sets out the competing definitions and stresses the verse's point: these prohibitions were human inventions falsely ascribed to God. Al-Rāghib, as quoted, adds the sense of a freed slave without walāʾ, which he says was forbidden.
Draws on: Q 5:103 · al-Ṭabarī · al-Zamakhsharī · al-Rāzī · al-Rāghib
Reference