Root · 24 in the Quran · 20 in 9 texts of the library
غضبHardness and force; al-ghaḍba is a hard rock, and anger is so called as an … (root ghdb)
الغين والضاد والباء أصل صحيح يدل على شدة وقوة
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of غ ض ب that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
20 words4 verbs1 verbal noun2 participles3 intensives and elatives8 other nouns2 relatives and abstracts
- غَضَبanger; wrath
- غَضِبَhe was angry with him
- غَضْبَان—
- مَغْضُوبobject of anger
- مُغَاضِب—
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4غَضِبَ · غَاضَبَ · أَغْضَبَ
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.”)
Verbal nouns1غَضَب
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- غَضَبanger; wrathautoForm I · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×14library ×14LaneIbn Fāris
Participles2مَغْضُوب · مُغَاضِب
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative3غَضْبَان · غَضُوب · أَغْضَب
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns8غَضِب · غَضْب · غَضْبَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 13 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 · 170A man [described as] ghaḍūb (غضوب), ghaḍib (غضب), ghaḍibah (غضبة), and ghaḍib (غضب) means one who is much and intensely angry.
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 · 393Ghaḍiba ʿalayhi ghaḍaban wa maghḍabah (غضب عليه غضبا ومغضبة) [he became angry at him];
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Ghayn, ḍād, and bāʾ form a sound root indicating intensity and strength.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-ghaḍab (الغضب — anger) is the boiling of the heart's blood, [driven by] a desire for retribution.
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
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 ↗
Technical definitions1 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
الغضب
تغير يحصل عند غليان دم القلب؛ ليحصل عنه التشفي للصدر.
Al-ghaḍab (الغضب — anger): a change that occurs upon the boiling of the heart's blood, so that thereby a venting/relief (tashaffī) for the breast may result. AI
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
غ ض ب
الغين والضاد والباء أصل صحيح يدل على شدة وقوة
gh-ḍ-b: one sound root indicating intensity and strength. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lane ↗al-Khalīl: used ↗Quran ×24
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
- غghayntop of the throat · voiced, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- ضḍādside of the tongue, by the molars · voiced, continuant, velarisedSīb. · 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
غ
وأدناها مخرجا من الفم: الغين والخاء
The nearest of them to the mouth in place: the ghayn and the khāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26549 ↗
ومما فوق ذلك مع أول الفم، مخرج الغين والخاء
From above that, at the start of the mouth, is the place of the ghayn and the khāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 971 ↗
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 ↗
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
غ
Level of existence: الجسم الكل · the Universal Body
Divine Name: الظاهر · al-Ẓāhir, the Outward
Lunar mansion: الميسان وهي الهقعة · al-Maysān, which is al-Haqʿa
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62077Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
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 2580ب
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
غ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم للنظر الذي يبلغ به حقيقة الشيء.
It is a name for the gaze by which one reaches the reality of a thing.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم من أسمائه تعالى ويدل على الحنانة فيه.
It is one of the names of God (Exalted is He), and it denotes the tenderness in Him.
With kasra ـِ
فهي سؤال مما يجهله ليجيبه بما يعلمه.
It is a question, from one who does not know, so that someone may answer him with what he knows.
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.
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 nucleus3 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterغ ض
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 24152 ↗
- غضبالغين والضاد والباء أصل صحيح يدل على شدة وقوةQ 24 · L24171
- غضلالغين والضاد واللام يقولون أغضلت الشجرة واغضالت إذا كثرت أغصانهاL24176
- غضاالغين والضاد والحرف المعتل كلمتانL24177
In the sister scriptsHebrew ע צ בSyriac ܥ ܥ ܒ
| Arabic | غ ض ب |
| Hebrew | ע צ ב |
| Syriac | ܥ ܥ ܒ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩶 𐩳 𐩨 |
| Phoenician | 𐤏 𐤑 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 lists intensive adjectives for a man much given to anger, and a ghaḍūb she-camel that frowns.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl lists intensive adjectives for a man much given to anger, and a ghaḍūb she-camel that frowns. He also records concrete senses: ghaḍab, a congenital swelling of the upper eyelid; ghaḍba, a hard rock lodged in a mountain and different from it; and ghaḍba, the hide of an old ibex. Al-Jawharī sets out the verb and adjectives (ghaḍbān/ghaḍbā, Asadī ghaḍbāna). He also cites al-Umawī's distinction: ghaḍibtu li-fulān of a living person, ghaḍibtu bihi of a dead one. Ibn Fāris unifies these under 'hardness and force', deriving ghaḍab from the hard rock as an 'intensification of displeasure (sakhaṭ)'. Al-Rāghib defines anger physiologically, as the surging of the heart's blood in the wish for revenge, and says that when predicated of God it means retribution (intiqām) alone. Lane adds idioms such as ghaḍiba lahu, anger on another's behalf. No Lisān excerpt was supplied for this root.
Draws on: al-Khalīl · al-Jawharī · Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs · al-Rāghib · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root غ ض ب (link not verified)
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. غضب
Letters & soundIn Ibn ʿArabī's correspondence of letters with the levels of the Breath of the All-Merciful, ghayn corresponds to the Universal Body (al-jism al-kull).speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In Ibn ʿArabī's correspondence of letters with the levels of the Breath of the All-Merciful, ghayn corresponds to the Universal Body (al-jism al-kull). That is the most densely corporeal level, which a symbolic reader might set beside al-Khalīl's rock and eyelid swelling. Al-Dabbāgh gives ghayn as 'the gaze by which one reaches the reality of a thing', ḍād as 'health and absence of affliction', and bāʾ as 'the utmost of might or the utmost of abasement'. The last could be matched to anger's force, but these meanings were not formulated with this root in view. Mainstream linguistics treats such sound-symbolism as suggestive at most.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī, Futūḥāt ch. 198 · al-Dabbāgh
- Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, ch. 198 (nafas al-Raḥmān)
- al-Dabbāgh, al-Ibrīz
Root structureIbn Fāris's gh-ḍ group supplied here is small.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's gh-ḍ group supplied here is small. It contains gh-ḍ-b itself, gh-ḍ-l (a tree whose branches become dense), and gh-ḍ-w/y ('two words'). Among the permutations, b-gh-ḍ is attested five times in the Quran, and Ibn Fāris defines it as 'the opposite of love'; it sits beside anger in meaning and shares its letters. Ibn Fāris says ḍ-gh-b is 'not a root' and records only sounds: a hare's cry when seized, and one who hides in a thicket to frighten people. The remaining orders are unattested in the data. This is too thin a set to support Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris nucleus siblings · permutations
Semitic kin & loanwordsI know of no confident cognate of gh-ḍ-b in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or Epigraphic South Arabian.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
I know of no confident cognate of gh-ḍ-b in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or Epigraphic South Arabian. These languages express anger through other roots (e.g. Hebrew ʾaf, ḥārōn; Syriac rugzā). The word is native Arabic and not a loanword.
Draws on: negative finding
Quranic exegesisOn al-maghḍūb ʿalayhim (Q 1:7), al-Ṭabarī identifies the group as the Jews on the basis of reports from the Prophet, and al-Rāghib records the same view with 'it is said'.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
On al-maghḍūb ʿalayhim (Q 1:7), al-Ṭabarī identifies the group as the Jews on the basis of reports from the Prophet, and al-Rāghib records the same view with 'it is said'. Al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī interpret God's anger by its effect, the will to punish or the punishment itself, not as an affect. Al-Rāzī states this as a general rule: such attributes apply to God by their outcomes (ghāyāt), not their onsets (mabādī). On 'wrath upon wrath' (Q 2:90), the exegetes explain the doubling as successive offences, such as rejecting one prophet after another. Human anger is narrated at Q 20:86, where Moses returns ghaḍbān asifan, and at Q 21:87, where Dhū al-Nūn departs mughāḍiban.
Draws on: al-Ṭabarī · al-Zamakhsharī · al-Rāzī · al-Rāghib
Philosophy & kalāmIn falsafa, al-quwwa al-ghaḍabiyya is the irascible faculty, the Platonic thumos.well attested
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In falsafa, al-quwwa al-ghaḍabiyya is the irascible faculty, the Platonic thumos. Avicenna places it with the appetitive faculty (shahwāniyya) under the motive power of the animal soul, as the power that repels what is harmful. Al-Ghazālī takes over this scheme in the Iḥyāʾ, whose book on censuring anger, rancour and envy treats anger as a faculty to be disciplined, not uprooted. In kalām, divine ghaḍab is one of the attributes whose literal sense implies change. Most mutakallimūn therefore interpret it as God's will to punish, or as the punishment itself.
Draws on: Avicenna, faculty psychology · al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ · kalām on divine attributes
- SEP, Ibn Sina [Avicenna] ↗
- al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Kitāb dhamm al-ghaḍab wa-l-ḥiqd wa-l-ḥasad
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, God 'described Himself with contentment (riḍā) and wrath (ghaḍab)' and brought the world into being 'possessed of fear and hope', so that it fears His wrath and hopes for His contentment.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, God 'described Himself with contentment (riḍā) and wrath (ghaḍab)' and brought the world into being 'possessed of fear and hope', so that it fears His wrath and hopes for His contentment. Wrath appears here as one of the paired divine qualities (followed by beauty and majesty) that are mirrored in the human being. It is one pole of a pair, not a standalone verdict. Elsewhere in the Fuṣūṣ (Faṣṣ Ismāʿīl), Ibn ʿArabī says the punishment of the damned is called ʿadhāb from the sweetness (ʿudhūba) of its taste. This belongs to his reading of 'My mercy precedes My wrath'. No Iṣṭilāḥ definition of ghaḍab was supplied.
Draws on: Faṣṣ Ādam context · Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ismāʿīl
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam; Faṣṣ Ismāʿīl
Reference