Root · 14 in the Quran · 89 in 17 texts of the library
عطوa single sound root denoting taking and handing over, and the root does not go beyond … (root tw)
العين والطاء والحرف المعتل أصل واحد صحيح يدل على أخذ ومناولة لا يخرج الباب عنهما فالعطو التناول باليد قال امرؤ القيس : …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ع ط و that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
18 words7 verbs2 verbal nouns1 participle1 place or instrument2 intensives and elatives3 other nouns1 plural1 relative or abstract
- أَعْطَىthe act of giving, presenting, or offering
- عَطَاء—
- تَعاطَىthe act of taking a thing that is given, presented, or offered, or that is as …
- عَطَا—
- يُعَطِّينِيَhe serves me, does service for me, or ministers to me
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7عَطَا · أَعْطَى · تَعاطَى
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 يَفْعُلُ (a – u; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
- عَطَاForm IQurʾān ×1Lane
- أَعْطَىthe act of giving, presenting, or offeringLaneForm IVQurʾān ×8library ×54Lane
- تَعاطَىthe act of taking a thing that is given, presented, or offered, or that is as …LaneForm VIlibrary ×2LaneIbn Fāris
- يُعَطِّينِيَhe serves me, does service for me, or ministers to meLaneForm IILane
Verbal nouns2عَطْو · عِطَاء
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles1مَعَاطِىُّ
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مَعَاطِىُّactive, Form IIILane
Place, time and instrument1مِعْطَاء
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مِعْطَاءman, and a woman, who gives much, or oftenLanenoun of instrumentLane
Intensives, qualities and the elative2أَعْطَى · عَطْوَى
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns3عَطَاء · عَطُوّ · عَطَاءَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 16 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-ʿaṭāʾ (العطاء) is the name for what is given.
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 belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters ʿayn, ṭāʾ, and the weak letter (wāw) form one sound root indicating 'taking' and 'handing over';
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
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.
ع ط و
العين والطاء والحرف المعتل أصل واحد صحيح يدل على أخذ ومناولة لا يخرج الباب عنهما فالعطو التناول باليد
ʿ-ṭ-w is one sound root indicating taking and handing over; the chapter does not go beyond these two. Al-ʿaṭw is reaching for something with the hand. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lane ↗al-Khalīl: used ↗Quran ×14
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
- وwāwbetween the lips · 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
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 ↗
و
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
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 2582و
Level of existence: تعيين الرتب والمقامات والمنازل · the determination of ranks, stations and waystations
Divine Name: رفيع الدرجات · Rafīʿ al-Darajāt, Exalted in Degrees
Lunar mansion: الرشا · al-Rashāʾ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62121Spheres 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
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.
و
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة في الإنسان مثل العروق والأصابع وما أشبه ذلك.
It is the intertwined things in the human being, such as veins, fingers and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الأشياء المباينة لبني آدم مثل الأفلاك والجبال وما أشبه ذلك
It is things distinct from the children of Adam, such as the celestial spheres, mountains and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة المستقذرة أو المبغوضة كالأمعاء ونحوها.
It is intertwined things that are filthy or detested, such as the intestines and the like.
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 וSyriac ܥ ܛ ܘ
| Arabic | ع ط و |
| Hebrew | ע ט ו |
| Syriac | ܥ ܛ ܘ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩲 𐩷 𐩥 |
| Phoenician | 𐤏 𐤈 𐤅 |
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 defines ʿaṭāʾ as the name for what is given, with plural aʿṭiya and aʿṭiyāt, and ʿaṭw as taking with the hand.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl defines ʿaṭāʾ as the name for what is given, with plural aʿṭiya and aʿṭiyāt, and ʿaṭw as taking with the hand. He cites Imruʾ al-Qays on a woman who 'reaches (taʿṭū) with soft fingers', and the gazelle (al-ẓabī al-ʿāṭī) that raises its forelegs to reach leaves. Ibn Fāris frames the root as taking and handing over, and reports from al-Khalīl that iʿṭāʾ (giving) is derived from ʿaṭw, so the causative 'make someone reach' becomes 'give'. He also records muʿāṭāt as passing things to one another, and taʿāṭī in the sense of taking what one has no right to. Lane adds ʿaṭw as raising the head and hands to take something, and the phrase 'so high that hands cannot reach it (lā taʿṭūhu al-ayādī)'. The excerpts supplied do not include al-Jawharī, al-Rāghib or Ibn Manẓūr on this root.
Draws on: al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn · Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root ʿ-ṭ-w ↗
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. عطو
Letters & soundIn the Ibn ʿArabī data, ṭāʾ corresponds to the Sixth Heaven, and no correspondence is given for ʿayn or wāw.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the Ibn ʿArabī data, ṭāʾ corresponds to the Sixth Heaven, and no correspondence is given for ʿayn or wāw. Al-Dabbāgh reads ʿayn as arrival or departure, ṭāʾ as a thing pure and clear to the utmost, and wāw as the intertwined parts of the human being, such as veins and fingers. The mention of fingers happens to match the lexicographers' image of reaching with the hand, and ʿayn's 'arrival or departure' matches the two-way movement of taking and handing over. Such matches are coincidences of reading, and mainstream linguistics treats sound-symbolism of this kind as suggestive at most.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letter–heaven correspondence · al-Dabbāgh
- al-Dabbāgh, al-Ibrīz (letter meanings)
Root structureThe ʿ-ṭ siblings in Ibn Fāris include ʿ-ṭ-f (bending, turning back) and ʿ-ṭ-l (emptiness, being left idle), and neither shows an obvious shared sense with reaching and handing over.speculative
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
The ʿ-ṭ siblings in Ibn Fāris include ʿ-ṭ-f (bending, turning back) and ʿ-ṭ-l (emptiness, being left idle), and neither shows an obvious shared sense with reaching and handing over. The permutation ṭ-w-ʿ (129 Quranic occurrences) denotes compliance and yielding. Placed beside ʿaṭw, it suggests a pairing of handing something over with handing oneself over. This is the kind of correspondence Ibn Jinnī sought in greater derivation, but it is only a juxtaposition. ʿ-w-ṭ is attested but has no gloss in the data.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris nucleus ʿ-ṭ · permutation ṭ-w-ʿ
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, bāb al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate for ʿ-ṭ-w 'reach, hand over' can be given in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate for ʿ-ṭ-w 'reach, hand over' can be given in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian. Hebrew ʿ-ṭ-h means 'wrap, cover', and the semantic gap is too wide to justify linking the two. The word is native Arabic, and nothing suggests borrowing.
Draws on: no confident cognate
Quranic exegesisAt Q 11:108, ʿaṭāʾan ghayra majdhūdh is glossed as a gift that is never cut off.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q 11:108, ʿaṭāʾan ghayra majdhūdh is glossed as a gift that is never cut off. The exegetes use this phrase to settle the preceding exception 'except as your Lord wills', taking it as confirming that the bliss of Paradise is perpetual. At Q 17:20, God's ʿaṭāʾ is extended to both those who seek this world and those who seek the next, and 'not withheld' is read as referring to worldly provision given to believer and unbeliever alike. At Q 54:29 (fa-taʿāṭā fa-ʿaqar), the man of Thamūd 'took it in hand' or 'ventured' and hamstrung the she-camel, and commentators note the sense of daring to take what is forbidden. At Q 9:29, yuʿṭū al-jizya ʿan yadin prompts discussion of whether ʿan yadin means payment by one's own hand, from ability, or in submission.
Draws on: al-Ṭabarī · al-Zamakhsharī · al-Rāzī
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, the verb yuʿṭī is used in the sense of 'yields, determines'.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, the verb yuʿṭī is used in the sense of 'yields, determines'. In the mirror image, the locus looked into gives the self a form that would not appear without that locus. The angels did not attend to what the constitution (nashʾa) of the vicegerent gives. Their own constitution gives what they said about Adam, so their words about him describe their own state with the Real. Giving here names the way a receptacle determines what appears in it. This connects with Ibn ʿArabī's wider use of Q 20:50, 'He gave each thing its creation', and his principle that knowledge follows the object known.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam · no Iṣṭilāḥ entry
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
- Q 20:50 ↗
Reference