Root · 0 in the Quran · 4 in 2 texts of the library
فصصA separation, or a joint, between two things. (root fss)
الفاء والصاد كلمة تدل على فصل بين شيئين
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ف ص ص that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
19 words6 verbs3 verbal nouns1 participle2 intensives and elatives6 other nouns1 plural
- فَصَّhe separated it from another thing
- أَفَصَّhe produced, or gave forth, or gave, to him somewhat of his right, or due
- اِنْفَصَّit became separated from another thing
- اِسْتَفَصَّhe did not extract, get out, or elicit, from him, or it, anything
- فصْفِصَةcertain plant
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs6فَصَّ · فَصَّصَ · أَفَصَّ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Verbal nouns3تَفْصِيص · فَصَص · فَصِيص
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles1مُفَصَّص
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُفَصَّصpassive, Form IILane
Intensives, qualities and the elative2فَصَّاص · فَصِيص
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns6تَفَصْفَصُو · فصْفِصَة · فَصْفَص
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
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 · 170Faṣṣ al-amr (فص الأمر): the one fully versed in it (ahluhu / أهله).
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 · 393Faṣṣ al-khātam (فص الخاتم): singular of fuṣūṣ (فصوص);
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters fāʾ and ṣād [together] form a word indicating separation between two things.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Faṣṣ al-amr (فص الأمر): its origin and true reality (aṣluhu wa-ḥaqīqatuh).
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
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 their orders. Choose one.
ف ص ص
الفاء والصاد كلمة تدل على فصل بين شيئين
f-ṣ-ṣ: a word indicating separation between two things. 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
- فfāʾlower lip and upper teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- صṣādtongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuant, velarisedSīb. · I. Jinnī
- صṣādtongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuant, velarisedSīb. · 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
ف
ومن باطن الشفة السفلى وأطراف الثنايا العلى مخرج الفاء
From the inside of the lower lip and the edges of the upper front teeth is the place of the fāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26562 ↗
ومن باطن الشفة السفلى وأطراف الثنايا العلى، مخرج الفاء
From the inside of the lower lip and the edges of the upper front teeth is the place of the fāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 985 ↗
ص
ومما بين طرف اللسان وفويق الثنايا مخرج الزاي، والسين، والصاد
From between the tip of the tongue and just above the front teeth is the place of the zāy, the sīn and the ṣād. Sībawayh, line 26560 ↗
ومما بين الثنايا وطرف اللسان، مخرج الصاد والزاي والسين
From between the front teeth and the tip of the tongue is the place of the ṣād, the zāy and the sīn. Ibn Jinnī, line 983 ↗
ص
ومما بين طرف اللسان وفويق الثنايا مخرج الزاي، والسين، والصاد
From between the tip of the tongue and just above the front teeth is the place of the zāy, the sīn and the ṣād. Sībawayh, line 26560 ↗
ومما بين الثنايا وطرف اللسان، مخرج الصاد والزاي والسين
From between the front teeth and the tip of the tongue is the place of the ṣād, the zāy and the sīn. Ibn Jinnī, line 983 ↗
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
ف
Level of existence: الملائكة · the angels
Divine Name: القوى · the Strong (al-Qawī)
Lunar mansion: سعد الأخبية · Saʿd al-Akhbiya
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 65823Spheres 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 2582ص
Level of existence: التراب · earth
Divine Name: المميت · al-Mumīt, the Death-Giver
Lunar mansion: البلدة · al-Balda
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62111Spheres 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 2580ص
Level of existence: التراب · earth
Divine Name: المميت · al-Mumīt, the Death-Giver
Lunar mansion: البلدة · al-Balda
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62111Spheres 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 2580Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ف
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي لنفي الخبث بعد ما كان جنسه معلوما بالخبث، فهي إشارة إلى أنه طاهر وجنسه خبيث، والخبث مثل المعاصي وما أشبهها.
It is for negating foulness in something whose genus is known for foulness. It thus indicates that the thing is pure while its genus is foul; foulness being like sins and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي لتزويل الخبث.
It is for removing foulness.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذات وما احتوت عليه، وفي بعض الأحيان قد يكون معها التقليل.
It is an indication of the self and what it contains; at times it may carry a sense of diminution.
ص
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع غبار الأرض في الموقف بين يدي الله عز وجل.
It is all the dust of the earth at the Standing (on the Day of Judgement) before God, Mighty and Majestic.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي جميع نباتاتها.
It is all its (the earth's) plants.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأرضون السبع.
It is the seven earths.
ص
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع غبار الأرض في الموقف بين يدي الله عز وجل.
It is all the dust of the earth at the Standing (on the Day of Judgement) before God, Mighty and Majestic.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي جميع نباتاتها.
It is all its (the earth's) plants.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأرضون السبع.
It is the seven earths.
Two-letter nucleus5 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterف ص
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 25105 ↗
- فصلالفاء والصاد واللام كلمة صحيحة تدل على تمييز الشيء من الشيء وإبانته عنهQ 43 · L25106
- فصمالفاء والصاد والميم أصل صحيح يدل على انصداع شيء من غير بينونةQ 1 · L25114
- فصحالفاء والصاد والحاء أصل يدل على خلوص في شيء ونقاء من الشوبQ 1 · L25121
- فصدالفاء والصاد والدال كلمة صحيحة وهي الفصد وهو قطع العرق حتى يسيل والفصيد دم كان يجعل في معى من فصد عروق الإبل ويشوى ويؤكل وذلك في الشدة تصيبL25130
- فصعالفاء والصاد والعين يدل على خروج شيء عن شيءL25133
In the sister scriptsHebrew פ צ צSyriac ܦ ܨ ܨ
| Arabic | ف ص ص |
| Hebrew | פ צ צ |
| Syriac | ܦ ܨ ܨ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩰 𐩮 𐩮 |
| Phoenician | 𐤐 𐤑 𐤑 |
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 already holds two poles together: faṣṣ al-ʿayn as the pupil (ḥadaqa), and faṣṣ al-amr as the point from which a matter can be grasped, illustrated by the line 'yaʾtīka bi'l-amr min faṣṣih.' al-Jawharī adds the concrete faṣṣ al-khātam (the ring's gem) and, following Ibn al-Sikkīt, generalizes fuṣūṣ to any joint where two bones meet, while also recording faṣṣa al-jurḥ, 'the wound wept,' as a variant of fazza.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
al-Khalīl already holds two poles together: faṣṣ al-ʿayn as the pupil (ḥadaqa), and faṣṣ al-amr as the point from which a matter can be grasped, illustrated by the line 'yaʾtīka bi'l-amr min faṣṣih.' al-Jawharī adds the concrete faṣṣ al-khātam (the ring's gem) and, following Ibn al-Sikkīt, generalizes fuṣūṣ to any joint where two bones meet, while also recording faṣṣa al-jurḥ, 'the wound wept,' as a variant of fazza. Ibn Fāris in the Maqāyīs unifies all of this under a single sense, 'separation between two things': bone-joints, the phrase afṣaṣtu ilayhi min ḥaqqihi shayʾan ('I detached part of his due for him'), and faṣṣ al-khātam precisely because the gem is affixed to, not part of, the ring's own substance; faṣṣ al-ʿayn he treats as a secondary extension by resemblance. Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān gathers these into aṣluhu wa-ḥaqīqatuhu wa-kunhuhu ('its root, reality, essence'), alongside faṣṣ al-māʾ (its bubbles) and faṣṣ al-khamr (its visible trace), so that by this stage faṣṣ has become a general word for the distinct kernel-point of a thing, a sense Lane's summary preserves.
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs al-Lugha · Lisān al-ʿArab · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root ف ص ص (link not verified)
Letters & soundIn the scheme supplied, ف is linked to the angels and, per al-Dabbāgh, to negating foulness in a thing whose genus is known for it — purity set apart within a baser kind;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the scheme supplied, ف is linked to the angels and, per al-Dabbāgh, to negating foulness in a thing whose genus is known for it — purity set apart within a baser kind; ص is linked to earth and, per al-Dabbāgh, to the dust of all creation gathered at the Standing. Read speculatively against faṣṣ al-khātam — the gem set into, yet distinct from, the base metal — this pairs 'purity distinguished from genus' (ف) with 'earthly matter singled out' (ص), a resonance Ibn ʿArabī's use of faṣṣ for the earthen yet distinguished Adam seems to exploit. This is offered as sound-symbolism only; mainstream linguistics gives individual Arabic letters no demonstrated semantic content, so the claim stays at the level of suggestive juxtaposition.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī, letters of the Breath · al-Dabbāgh
Root structureIbn Fāris places فصص beside a family built on ف-ص-: فصل (clean separation/distinction), فصم (a crack short of full separation), فصح (purity distinguished from admixture), and فصد (opening a vein to let blood flow) — all turning on some mode of cutting-apart or distinguishing-off.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris places فصص beside a family built on ف-ص-: فصل (clean separation/distinction), فصم (a crack short of full separation), فصح (purity distinguished from admixture), and فصد (opening a vein to let blood flow) — all turning on some mode of cutting-apart or distinguishing-off. Among the bilateral permutations of ف-ص-ص, only the root's own order is attested; صفص and صصف carry no recorded sense, so Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation finds no genuine anagram-partner here. The coherence of the family runs through the triliteral siblings, not through permutation; this is offered as juxtaposition of Ibn Fāris's own data, not an established semantic transfer.
Draws on: Maqāyīs nucleus · permutations table
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (greater derivation) (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate has been identified for faṣṣ in its senses of joint, gem, or essential point;uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate has been identified for faṣṣ in its senses of joint, gem, or essential point; the root looks like an Arabic-internal formation sharing the biliteral f-ṣ sense of cutting/separating with فصل and فصم. The lexicographers do flag an adjacent word as a genuine loan: al-Jawharī states that fiṣfiṣa, 'fresh alfalfa,' derives from Persian isfist — but this reduplicated formation is separate from the root فصص itself, which shows no sign of borrowing.
Draws on: al-Ṣiḥāḥ on fiṣfiṣa
Akbarian readingIbn ʿArabī opens the book calling Adam 'badīʾ' and 'the separating, all-comprehending Word' (al-kalima al-fāṣila al-jāmiʿa), through whose existence the world's subsistence is completed: Adam stands to the world as the faṣṣ (bezel) stands to the khātam (signet-ring) — the locus of the engraving (naqsh) and the sign by which the seal is impressed.well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Ibn ʿArabī opens the book calling Adam 'badīʾ' and 'the separating, all-comprehending Word' (al-kalima al-fāṣila al-jāmiʿa), through whose existence the world's subsistence is completed: Adam stands to the world as the faṣṣ (bezel) stands to the khātam (signet-ring) — the locus of the engraving (naqsh) and the sign by which the seal is impressed. This exploits precisely Ibn Fāris's etymological point that the faṣṣ is affixed to, yet distinct from, the ring's own substance: Adam is of the world yet not reducible to it, the setting in which the universal pattern becomes legible and operative. He generalizes the image for the whole book: 'the faṣṣ of every wisdom is the word (prophet) to which it is ascribed' — each chapter's namesake is the particular setting in which one facet of universal Wisdom is engraved. The older senses of joint, essential point, and point of emergence ('yaʾtīka bi'l-amr min faṣṣih') all converge here in the book's controlling image.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference