Root · 12 in the Quran · 37 in 14 texts of the library
شمل (root shml)
الشين والميم واللام أصلان منقاسان مطردان كل واحد منهما في معناه وبابه
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ش م ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
51 words6 verbs7 verbal nouns3 participles4 places and instruments3 intensives and elatives20 other nouns5 plurals3 relatives and abstracts
- شِمَالleft
- اِشْتَمَلَhe wrapped, or inwrapped, himself with his garment
- شَمِلَcomprise; include
- شَمَائِل—
- شَامِلcomprehensive; general
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs6شَمِلَ · اِشْتَمَلَ · شَمَّلَ
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: فَعِلَ يَفْعَلُ (i – a; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
- شَمِلَcomprise; includeautoForm Ilibrary ×5Lane
- اِشْتَمَلَhe wrapped, or inwrapped, himself with his garmentLaneForm VIIIQurʾān ×2library ×2LaneIbn Fāris
- شَمَّلَForm IILane
- أَشْمَلَForm IVLaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns7تَشَمُّل · شَمْلَلَة · شُمُول
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles3شَامِل · مُشْتَمِل · مَشْمُول
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- شَامِلcomprehensive; generalautoactive, Form Ilibrary ×3LaneIbn Fāris
- مُشْتَمِلincluding; comprisingautoactive, Form VIIIlibrary ×3Lane
- مَشْمُولpassive, Form ILaneIbn Fāris
Place, time and instrument4مِشْمَل · مَشْمَلَة · مِشْمَال
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative3أَشْمَل · شَمُول · شَمِيل
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- أَشْمَلmore; most comprehensiveautoelative or colour adjective (afʿal)library ×1Ibn Fāris
- شَمُولintensive (faʿūl)LaneIbn Fāris
- شَمِيلquality (faʿīl)Lane
Other nouns20شِمَال · شَمَائِل · شَمَال
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- شِمَالleftautonounQurʾān ×8library ×5LaneIbn Fāris
- شَمَائِلnounQurʾān ×2
- شَمَالthe north windLanenounlibrary ×1LaneIbn Fāris
- شَمْلَةcloakautonounlibrary ×1LaneIbn Fāris
Plurals5أَشْمَل · شَمَالِيل · أَشَامِل
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- أَشْمَلplural of the north windfrom the singularbroken plural of شَمَالLaneIbn Fāris
- شَمَالِيلbroken plural of شُمْلُولLaneIbn Fāris
- أَشَامِلplural of the north windfrom the singularbroken plural of شَمَالLane
- أَشْمَالbroken plural of شَمَلLane
- شُمُلplural of leftfrom the singularbroken plural of شِمَالLane
Relative and abstract3شَمْلِيَّة · شِمالِيّ · شَمَالِيّ
-iyy relates a thing to its source; -iyya makes an abstract noun.grammar →
- شَمْلِيَّةgood qualities; good traitsautoabstract noun (-iyya)library ×2
- شِمالِيّleftistautorelative adjective (-iyy)library ×2
- شَمَالِيّrelative adjective (-iyy)Lane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 20 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: مَشْمَلَة, noun of place (with -a) (Lane)
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
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 · 395الشين والميم واللام أصلان منقاسان مطردان كل واحد منهما في معناه وبابه فالأول يدل على دوران الشيء بالشيء وأخذه إياه من جوانبه من ذلك قولهم شملهم الأمر إذا عمهم وهذا أمر شامل ومنه الشملة وهي كساء يؤتزر به ويشتمل وجمع الله
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.
ش م ل
الشين والميم واللام أصلان منقاسان مطردان كل واحد منهما في معناه وبابه
sh-m-l has two analogical and consistent roots, each in its own meaning and category. 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
- شshīnmiddle of the tongue · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- مmīmbetween the lips · 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
ش
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 ↗
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 ↗
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
ش
Level of existence: فلك الكواكب الثابتة والجنات · the sphere of the fixed stars and the Gardens
Divine Name: المقدر · al-Muqaddir, the Determiner
Lunar mansion: الجبهة · al-Jabha
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62087Spheres 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 2581م
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 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
ش
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الرحمة التي لا يعقبها عذاب، وتكون إشارة إلى من خرجت منه النقمة ودخلت عليه الرحمة وتظهر.
It is an indication of mercy that is not followed by punishment. It also indicates one from whom vengeance has departed and upon whom mercy has entered and becomes manifest.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى عال في نفسه مع التعظيم.
It is an indication of something lofty in itself, with veneration.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي من طبعه الستر، وقد تكون الإشارة إلى ما هو مستور في القلب وما أشبه ذلك.
It is an indication of the thing whose nature is concealment; the indication may be to what is concealed in the heart and the like.
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.
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 nucleus7 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterش 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 15470 ↗
- شمتالشين والميم والتاء أصل صحيح ويشذ عنه بعض ما فيه إشكال وغموض فالأصل فرح عدو ببليه تصيب من يعاديهQ 1 · L15471
- شمجالشين والميم والجيم أصل يدل على الخلط وقلة ائتلاف الشيءL15486
- شمخالشين والميم والخاء أصل صحيح يدل على تعظم وارتفاعQ 1 · L15490
- شمرالشين والميم والراء أصلان متضادان يدل أحدهما على تقلص وارتفاع ويدل الآخر على سحب وإرسالL15492
- شمصالشين والميم والصاد كلمة واحدةL15507
- شمطوأما الشين والميم والطاء فقياس صحيح يدل على الخلطةL15509
- شمقالشين والميم والقاف يقولون إنه أصل صحيح ويذكرون فيه الشمق وهو إما النشاط وإما الولوع بالشيءL15525
In the sister scriptsHebrew ש מ לSyriac ܣ ܡ ܠ
| Arabic | ش م ل |
| Hebrew | ש מ ל |
| Syriac | ܣ ܡ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩦/𐩪 𐩣 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤔 𐤌 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.
Reference