Root · 2 in the Quran · 42 in 7 texts of the library
عطل (root tl)
العين والطاء واللام أصل صحيح واحد يدل على خلو وفراغ تقول عطلت الدار ودار معطلة ومتى تركت الإبل بلا راع فقد عطلت وكذلك …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ع ط ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
23 words5 verbs2 verbal nouns5 participles1 place or instrument1 intensive or elative8 other nouns1 plural
- عَطَّلَhinder; interrupt
- عَاطِلverses of which the words are without diacritical points
- عُطْلَةthe state of being, or remaining, without work, or occupation
- مُعَطَّلcamels left without a pastor
- تَعَطَّلَ—
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5عَطِلَتَ · عَطَّلَ · تَعَطَّلَ
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.”)
- عَطِلَتَshe had not upon her any women's ornamentsLaneForm ILaneIbn Fāris
- عَطَّلَhinder; interruptautoForm IIQurʾān ×1library ×1LaneIbn Fāris
- تَعَطَّلَLane: see Form IForm Vlibrary ×1Lane
- أَعْطَلَLane: see Form IIForm IVLane
- اِسْتَعْطَلَLane: see Form IForm XLane
Verbal nouns2تَعْطِيل · عَطَل
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles5عَاطِل · مُعَطَّل · مَعَاطِل
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- عَاطِلverses of which the words are without diacritical pointsLaneactive, Form Ilibrary ×3LaneIbn Fāris
- مُعَطَّلcamels left without a pastorLanepassive, Form IVlibrary ×1Lane
- مَعَاطِلthe parts which are the places of the ornaments of a womanLaneactive, Form IIILane
- مُعَطِّلone who asserts that the universe is devoid of an artificer who constructed …Laneactive, Form IILane
- مُعْطَلpassive, Form IVLane
Place, time and instrument1مِعْطَال
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مِعْطَالnoun of instrumentLane
Intensives, qualities and the elative1عَطِيل
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- عَطِيلquality (faʿīl)Lane
Other nouns8عُطْلَة · عَطِل · عَيْطَل
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
Ibn Fāris · 395العين والطاء واللام أصل صحيح واحد يدل على خلو وفراغ تقول عطلت الدار ودار معطلة ومتى تركت الإبل بلا راع فقد عطلت وكذلك البئر إذا لم تورد ولم يستق منها قال الله تبارك وتعالى ﴿ وبئر معطلة ﴾ وقال تعالى ﴿ وإذا العشار عطلت ﴾ و
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.
ع ط ل
العين والطاء واللام أصل صحيح واحد يدل على خلو وفراغ تقول عطلت الدار ودار معطلة ومتى تركت الإبل بلا راع فقد عطلت وكذلك البئر إذا لم تورد ولم يستق منها
ʿ-ṭ-l is one sound root indicating emptiness and vacancy. You say ʿaṭṭalat al-dār, and a house is muʿaṭṭala; and whenever camels are left without a herdsman they have become ʿaṭṭalat, and likewise a well when it is not come to and water is not drawn from it. 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
- عʿaynmiddle of the throat · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- طṭāʾtongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiced, stop, velarisedSīb. · 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
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 ↗
ط
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا مخرج الطاء، والدال، والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26559 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا، مخرج الطاء والدال والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 982 ↗
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
ع
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 ↗
ط
Level of existence: السماء السادسة · the sixth heaven
Divine Name: المحصي · the Enumerator (al-Muḥṣī)
Lunar mansion: الزبانا · al-Zubānā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64680Spheres 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
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.
ط
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي جنسه طاهر وصاف إلى النهاية، وهو في ذاته أيضا طاهر صاف إلى النهاية.
It is an indication of the thing whose genus is pure and clear to the utmost, and which is also, in itself, pure and clear to the utmost.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الخبيث إلى النهاية عكس الأول.
It is an indication of what is foul to the utmost, the reverse of the first.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي من طبعه السكون أو أمر بالسكون.
It is an indication of the thing whose nature is stillness, or which has been commanded to be still.
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 nucleus4 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterع ط
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 23252 ↗
- عطفالعين والطاء والفاء أصل واحد صحيح يدل على انثناء وعياجQ 1 · L23253
- عطلالعين والطاء واللام أصل صحيح واحد يدل على خلو وفراغ تقول عطلت الدار ودار معطلة ومتى تركت الإبل بلا راع فقد عطلت وكذلك البئر إذا لم تورد ولم يستق منهاQ 2 · L23262
- عطبالعين والطاء والباء كلمتان لا تتقاربان في المعنىL23298
- عطدالعين والطاء والدال ذكرت فيه كلمة والقياس لا يسوغها لكنهم يقولون العطود السير السريع الشاق وينشدون : — إليك أشكو عنقا عطودا …L23300
In the sister scriptsHebrew ע ט לSyriac ܥ ܛ ܠ
| Arabic | ع ط ل |
| Hebrew | ע ט ל |
| Syriac | ܥ ܛ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩲 𐩷 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤏 𐤈 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