Root · 8 in the Quran · 5 in 4 texts of the library
ضرعlīn in a thing (root dr)
الضاد والراء والعين أصل صحيح يدل على لين في الشيء
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ض ر ع that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
23 words5 verbs4 verbal nouns5 participles3 intensives and elatives5 other nouns1 plural
- تَضَرَّعَhe lowered, humbled, or abased, himself
- تَضَرُّع—
- ضَرَعَ—
- ضَرِيع—
- ضَارَعَhe, or it, resembled him, or it
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5ضَرَعَ · تَضَرَّعَ · ضَرَّعَ
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 Lane's “aor.”)
Verbal nouns4تَضَرُّع · ضَرَع · مُضَارَعَة
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles5ضَارِع · مُسْتَضْرِع · مُضَارِع
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative3ضَرِيع · أَضْرَع · ضَرُوع
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns5ضَرِع · ضَرْع · ضِرْع
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
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.
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
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 · 170Ḍaraʿa al-rajul (ضرع الرجل) yaḍraʿu (يضرع), so he is ḍaraʿ (ضرع), meaning: inexperienced and weak (ghamr ḍaʿīf).
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-ḍarʿ (الضرع, the udder) belongs to every animal with a soft foot-pad or a cloven hoof.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Ḍād, rāʾ, and ʿayn form a sound root indicating softness/pliancy in a thing.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-ḍarʿ (الضرع) is the udder of the she-camel, the ewe, and others.
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 · 711Ḍaraʿa ilayhi (ضرع إليه) yaḍraʿu (يضرع) ḍaraʿan (ضرعا) wa-ḍarāʿatan (وضراعة): he submitted and became abased, so he is ḍāriʿ (ضارع), from a people [described as] ḍaraʿah (ضرعة) or ḍurūʿ (ضروع).
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic below
Technical definitions1 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
المضارع
ما تعاقب في صدره الهمزة والنون والياء والتاء.
Al-muḍāriʿ (المضارع, the present/imperfect verb): that in whose beginning the hamzah, nūn, yāʾ, and tāʾ alternate [as prefixes]. AI
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ض ر ع
الضاد والراء والعين أصل صحيح يدل على لين في الشيء
ḍ-r-ʿ: a sound root indicating softness in a thing. 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
- ضḍādside of the tongue, by the molars · voiced, continuant, velarisedSīb. · I. Jinnī
- رrāʾtip of the tongue, near the nūn · 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
ض
ومن بين أول حافة اللسان وما يليها من الأضراس مخرج الضاد
From between the first part of the tongue's edge and the molars next to it is the place of the ḍād. Sībawayh, line 26554 ↗
ومن أول حافة اللسان وما يليها من الأضراس مخرج الضاد
From the first part of the tongue's edge and the molars next to it is the place of the ḍād. Ibn Jinnī, line 975 ↗
ر
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا لانحرافه إلى اللام مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26557–26558 ↗
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا، لانحرافه إلى اللام، مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, lines 980–981 ↗
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
ض
Level of existence: السماء الثانية · the second heaven
Divine Name: العليم · the All-Knowing (al-ʿAlīm)
Lunar mansion: الصرفة · al-Ṣarfa
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64627Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 8 line 2571 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
الثمانية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The eightfold [rank]: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2580ر
Level of existence: السماء الخامسة · the fifth heaven
Divine Name: المصور · the Form-Giver (al-Muṣawwir)
Lunar mansion: الغفر · al-Ghafr
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64675Spheres 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
ض
With fatḥa ـَ
عبارة عن الصحة وعدم البلاء.
It expresses health and the absence of affliction.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا نور فيه أو لا ظلام فيه.
It is an indication of the thing in which there is no light, or no darkness.
With kasra ـِ
فهي عبارة عن الخضوع.
It expresses submissiveness/humility.
ر
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الخيرات الظاهرة والباطنة.
It is an indication of all goods, outward and inward.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الواحد في نفسه وهو ظاهر.
It is an indication of the one in itself, and it is manifest.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي فيه الروح وليس من بني آدم، أو إشارة إلى الروح نفسها.
It is an indication of a thing that has spirit in it but is not of the children of Adam, or an indication of the spirit itself.
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 nucleus8 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterض ر
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 17791 ↗
- ضرزالضاد والراء والزاء كلمة واحدةL17792
- ضرسالضاد والراء والسين أصل صحيح يدل على قوة وخشونة وقد يشذ عنه ما يخالفه فالضرس من الأسنان سمى بذلك لقوته على سائر الأسنان ويقال ضرسه يضرسه إذا تناوله بضL17793
- ضرعالضاد والراء والعين أصل صحيح يدل على لين في الشيءQ 8 · L17802
- ضركالضاد والراء والكاف كلمة واحدة لا قياس لهاL17815
- ضرىالضاد والراء والحرف المعتل أصلان أحدهما شبه الإغراء بالشيء واللهج به والآخر شيء يسترL17822
- ضربالضاد والراء والباء أصل واحد ثم يستعار ويحمل عليهQ 58 · L17830
- ضرجالضاد والراء والجيم أصل صحيح واحد يدل على تفتح الشيء تقول العرب انضرجت عن البقل لفائفه إذا انفتحت والانشقاق كله انضراجL17857
- ضرحالضاد والراء والحاء أصلان أحدهما رمى الشيء والآخر لون من الألوانL17864
In the sister scriptsHebrew צ ר עSyriac ܥ ܪ ܥ
| Arabic | ض ر ع |
| Hebrew | צ ר ע |
| Syriac | ܥ ܪ ܥ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩳 𐩧 𐩲 |
| Phoenician | 𐤑 𐤓 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.
Lenses
AIClassical lexiconAl-Khalīl gives ḍaraʿa yaḍraʿu, fa-huwa ḍaraʿ, as ghumr ḍaʿīf — an inexperienced, weak man, citing Ṭarafa.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives ḍaraʿa yaḍraʿu, fa-huwa ḍaraʿ, as ghumr ḍaʿīf — an inexperienced, weak man, citing Ṭarafa. Al-Jawharī fixes the primary physical sense (ḍarʿ, the udder of any hoofed animal; aḍraʿat al-shāh, when the ewe's milk descends before parturition) alongside the moral sense ḍaraʿa = khaḍaʿa wa-dhalla (submitted, was abased), and records tadarraʿa ilā Allāh as fervent supplication, with tadarraʿa ilā Allāh glossed as ibtihāl. Ibn Fāris unifies these under one aṣl, līn — softness — deriving both the udder (named for its softness) and abasement (softening of the will before another) from a single image, and even folds in muḍāraʿa (resemblance) as if two things suckled from one udder. Al-Rāghib sharpens the semantic path: ḍaraʿa ilayhim originally meant reaching for the mother's udder (suckling), whence ḍaraʿa al-rajul ḍarāʿatan, weakened/abased himself, anchoring the Qur'anic tadarruʿ (6:42, 6:63, 7:94) in that image of infantile dependency. Ibn Manẓūr confirms the same arc — ḍaraʿa ilayhi = khaḍaʿa wa-dhalla, tadarraʿa = tadhallala wa-takhashshaʿa — and, via al-Farrāʾ, treats yataḍarraʿu as a synonym-set with yataʿarraḍu/yataʾarraḍu for 'coming to seek a need.'
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs al-Lugha · al-Mufradāt · Lisān al-ʿArab
- al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn, root ض ر ع
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root ض ر ع
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root ض ر ع
- al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, root ض ر ع
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, root ض ر ع
Letters & soundIn the correspondence given, ḍād is assigned to the second heaven and, in its fatḥa, expresses health and the absence of affliction;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the correspondence given, ḍād is assigned to the second heaven and, in its fatḥa, expresses health and the absence of affliction; rāʾ to the fifth heaven, its fatḥa indicating all goods, outward and inward; ʿayn to Nature (al-ṭabīʿa), its fatḥa a name for arrival or departure. Read speculatively against the root's sense of līn (softness) shading into ḍarāʿa (abasement) and tadarruʿ (supplication), one could see in this triad a movement from bodily wellbeing (ḍād) through comprehensive good (rāʾ) to a natural motion of approach or departure (ʿayn) — apt to supplication understood as a turning-toward. This is an interpretive resonance only; mainstream historical linguistics treats letter-symbolism of this kind as suggestive at best, not as an explanatory mechanism for the root's actual semantic history.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letters-of-the-heavens correspondence · al-Dabbāghī letter-meanings
- Ibn ʿArabī, correspondence of letters to the heavens (as supplied)
- al-Dabbāghī, meanings of the vowel-letters (as supplied)
Root structureAmong the ḍ-r nucleus siblings, ḍrʿ (softness/līn) stands immediately beside ḍrs, which Ibn Fāris glosses as quwwa wa-khushūna, strength and roughness — an almost antithetical pairing across a single letter-slot.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Among the ḍ-r nucleus siblings, ḍrʿ (softness/līn) stands immediately beside ḍrs, which Ibn Fāris glosses as quwwa wa-khushūna, strength and roughness — an almost antithetical pairing across a single letter-slot. Of the six triliteral permutations of ḍ-r-ʿ, only ḍrʿ itself (8 Qur'anic occurrences) and rḍʿ (11 occurrences, raḍaʿa, to suckle at the udder/breast) carry real semantic weight; Ibn Fāris's own entry for rḍʿ explicitly names the udder as the object suckled, and extends it morally to rāḍiʿ as a miser who 'suckles' his own she-camels quietly to avoid the shame of the milking-sound being heard — a moral extension structurally parallel to ḍaraʿa's own move from udder to abasement. ʿḍr is explicitly denied any root-status by Ibn Fāris ('lā aṣla lahu'), and ḍʿr is unattested. This proximity of ḍrʿ and rḍʿ, both organized around the udder, is worth noting as juxtaposition, not as an assertion that one derives from the other.
Draws on: Maqāyīs nucleus siblings · permutation table
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, roots ض ر س / ض ر ع / ر ض ع / ع ض ر
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate for ḍ-r-ʿ in the senses 'udder / weakness / supplication' is attested in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian;plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate for ḍ-r-ʿ in the senses 'udder / weakness / supplication' is attested in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian; this root should not be confused with the distinct Arabic root dh-r-ʿ ('arm, cubit'), which does have solid cognates (Hebrew zeroaʿ, Aramaic derāʿ, Akkadian zurʾu) but belongs to a different consonant (ذ, not ض). The Arabic development here — udder → bodily softness/weakness → moral self-abasement → supplication — appears to be an internal Arabic semantic elaboration rather than an inherited pan-Semitic one. There is no basis for treating ḍaraʿa or tadarruʿ as a loanword.
Draws on: comparative Semitic lexicography
Quranic exegesisAt 6:42–43, al-Ṭabarī reads fa-lawlā idh jāʾahum baʾsunā taḍarraʿū as: why did they not humble themselves and turn in supplication when affliction struck them, contrasting this failure with hearts that only hardened (qasat qulūbuhum).well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 6:42–43, al-Ṭabarī reads fa-lawlā idh jāʾahum baʾsunā taḍarraʿū as: why did they not humble themselves and turn in supplication when affliction struck them, contrasting this failure with hearts that only hardened (qasat qulūbuhum). Al-Zamakhsharī treats tadarruʿ as the visible bodily posture expressing the inward ḍaraʿ (weakness/submission) buried in the root's etymology. At 6:63, tadarruʿan wa-khufyatan (openly and secretly), al-Rāzī distinguishes public, bodily supplication from hidden, inward supplication as two complementary modes of turning to God in distress. Al-Rāghib grounds the whole Qur'anic usage in the image of the infant reaching for the mother's udder — total, helpless dependency — as the root-picture beneath every occurrence of tadarruʿ addressed to God (6:42, 6:63, 7:94). The unrelated noun ḍarīʿ at 88:6 (Sūrat al-Ghāshiya) is read by the exegetes as a repugnant, thorny fodder of Hellfire, following al-Rāghib's gloss of it as either dried shibriq or a foul-smelling plant cast up by the sea.
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