Root · 2 in the Quran · 3 in 2 texts of the library
قوتa sound root denoting holding/preservation and capacity or power over a thing. (root qwt)
القاف والواو والتاء أصل صحيح يدل على إمساك وحفظ وقدرة على الشيء
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ق و ت that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
14 words6 verbs1 verbal noun2 participles4 other nouns1 plural
- مُقِيتgiving, or a giver of, food, nourishment, or sustenance
- قُوتfood, aliment, nutriment, victuals, or provisions, by means of which the body …
- أَقْوَات—
- قَاتَhe fed, nourished, or sustained, or fed with what would sustain the body, or …
- قَائِتfeeding
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs6قَاتَ · قَوَّتَ · اقاتَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Verbal nouns1قَوْت
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles2مُقِيت · قَائِت
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Other nouns4قُوت · قُوَات · قِيت
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 11 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-qūt (القوت): that which sustains the last remnant of life, from sustenance.
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 · 393Qāta ahlahu yaqūtuhum qūtan wa-qiyātatan (قات أهله يقوتهم قوتاً وقياتة): he provided sustenance for his family.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters qāf, wāw, and tā' (ق و ت) [form] a sound root indicating restraint/holding, preservation, and power over 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-qūt (القوت): that which sustains the last remnant of life;
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 · 711Al-qūt (القوت): that which sustains the last remnant of life, from sustenance.
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic below
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ق و ت
القاف والواو والتاء أصل صحيح يدل على إمساك وحفظ وقدرة على الشيء
q-w-t: a sound root indicating holding, preserving, and having power over 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
- قqāffar back of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- تtāʾtongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiceless, 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
ق
ومن أقصى اللسان وما فوقه من الحنك الأعلى مخرج القاف
From the furthest part of the tongue and the upper palate above it is the place of the qāf. Sībawayh, line 26550 ↗
ومما فوق ذلك من أقصى اللسان، مخرج القاف
From above that, at the furthest part of the tongue, is the place of the qāf. Ibn Jinnī, line 972 ↗
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 ↗
ت
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 ↗
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
ق
Spheres 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 2582ت
Spheres 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
ق
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى حيازة الخيرات أو إلى جميع الأنوار.
It is an indication of the acquisition of goods, or of all lights.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى النشأة الأصلية أو العلم القديم وما أشبه ذلك.
It is an indication of the original creation, or eternal knowledge, and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذل.
It is an indication of abasement.
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.
ت
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم للخير الكثير العظيم.
It is a name for abundant, great good.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للقليل البارز.
It is a name for the small, protruding/manifest thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم لما صنع وأبرز.
It is a name for what has been made and brought forth.
Two-letter nucleus13 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterق و
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 25746 ↗
- قوبالقاف والواو والباء أصل صحيح وهو شبه حفر مقور في الشيءQ 1 · L25761
- قوتالقاف والواو والتاء أصل صحيح يدل على إمساك وحفظ وقدرة على الشيءQ 2 · L25769
- قودالقاف والواو والدال اصل صحيح يدل على امتداد في الشيء ويكون ذلك امتدادا على وجه الأرض وفي الهواءL25778
- قورالقاف والواو والراء أصل صحيح يدل على استدارة في شيءL25788
- قوزالقاف والواو والزاء كلمة واحدة وهي القوز الكثيب وجمعه أقواز وقيزانL25796
- قوزالقاف والواو والزاء كلمة واحدة وهي القوز الكثيب وجمعه أقواز وقيزانL25800
- قوضالقاف والواو والضاد كلمة تدل على نقض بناءL25821
- قوطالقاف والواو والطاء كلمة واحدة يقولون القوط اليسير من الغنم والجمع أقواطL25824
- قوعالقاف والواو والعين أصل يدل على تبسط في مكانQ 2 · L25827
- قوفالقاف والواو والفاء كلمة وهي من باب القلب وليست أصلا يقولون هو يقوف الأثر ويقتافه بمعنى يقفو ويقولون أخذ بقوفة قفاه وهو الشعر المتدلي في نقرة القفاL25833
- قوقالقاف والواو والقاف كلمة يقولون القوق الرجل الطويلL25837
- قولالقاف والواو واللام أصل واحد صحيح يقل كلمه وهو القول من النطقQ 1722 · L25839
- قومالقاف والواو والميم أصلان صحيحان يدل أحدهما على جماعة ناس وربما استعير في غيرهم والآخر على انتصاب أو عزمQ 660 · L25843
In the sister scriptsHebrew ק ו תSyriac ܩ ܘ ܬ
| Arabic | ق و ت |
| Hebrew | ק ו ת |
| Syriac | ܩ ܘ ܬ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩤 𐩥 𐩩 |
| Phoenician | 𐤒 𐤅 𐤕 |
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 (al-ʿAyn) defines qūt as mā yumsiku al-ramaqa min al-rizq, 'what holds the last breath of life from one's provision,' with causative aqāta-hu glossed 'aʿūlu-hu bi-rizqin qalīl, 'I support him with a little provision';well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl (al-ʿAyn) defines qūt as mā yumsiku al-ramaqa min al-rizq, 'what holds the last breath of life from one's provision,' with causative aqāta-hu glossed 'aʿūlu-hu bi-rizqin qalīl, 'I support him with a little provision'; he also records a homonymous fire-sense, iqtatta li-l-nāri qītatan, 'feed a fire gently/measuredly.' Al-Jawharī (al-Ṣiḥāḥ) keeps the bodily-food sense (mā yaqūmu bihi badan al-insān min al-ṭaʿām), pairs qāta/iqtāta on the model of razaqa/irtazaqa, and adds a distinct sense, aqāta ʿalā al-shayʾ, 'to have power over a thing,' citing wa-kuntu ʿalā isāʾatihi muqītan, 'I had power over [requiting] his ill-treatment.' Ibn Fāris (Maqāyīs) unifies these as one aṣl, imsāk wa ḥifẓ wa qudra ʿalā al-shayʾ, grounding it in kāna Allāhu ʿalā kulli shayʾin muqītan (4:85), glossed ḥāfiẓan shāhidan qādiran, and derives qūt from this sense 'because it is what holds/sustains the body' (misāku al-badani wa-qiwātuhu). Al-Rāghib (al-Mufradāt) distinguishes qāta-hu ('fed him his sustenance') from aqāta-hu ('provided him with sustenance'), cites the hadith on neglecting those one is meant to yaqūt, and on muqītan surveys three readings — muqtadiran, ḥāfiẓan, shāhidan — before settling the ḥaqīqa as qāʾiman ʿalayhi yaḥfaẓuhu wa-yaqūtuhu, fusing capacity, guardianship, and nourishment. Ibn Manẓūr (Lisān) gathers these strands, adding Ibn al-Aʿrābī's note that al-iqtiyāt is simply a synonym-noun for al-qūt.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn, root q-w-t
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root q-w-t
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root q-w-t
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, q-w-t
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, q-w-t
Letters & soundAl-Dabbāgh's letter-values read qāf as 'the acquisition of goods,' wāw as 'the intertwined things in the human being, such as veins and fingers,' and tāʾ as 'a name for abundant, great good' — read charitably, a combination that resonates with qūt as an acquired good sustaining the body through its vessels.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Al-Dabbāgh's letter-values read qāf as 'the acquisition of goods,' wāw as 'the intertwined things in the human being, such as veins and fingers,' and tāʾ as 'a name for abundant, great good' — read charitably, a combination that resonates with qūt as an acquired good sustaining the body through its vessels. Ibn ʿArabī's akbarī table assigns wāw to 'the determination of ranks, stations and waystations,' which fits less obviously with qūt itself but is not incompatible with waqt's sense of appointed measure. As with all such correspondences this is retrospective pattern-matching rather than a predictive theory, and should be held as speculative only.
Draws on: dabbagh_fatha · akbari198
- al-Dabbāgh, letter values (fatḥa series)
- Ibn ʿArabī, akbarī letter correspondences (table, p.198)
Root structureUnder ق-و, Ibn Fāris places qawt beside qawb (a hollowed, carved-out shape), qawd (extension, on the ground or through the air — also the root of qiyāda, leadership-by-leading), qawr (roundness), qawz (a sand-dune), qawḍ (a structure's collapse), qawṭ (a small flock), qawʿ (a flat open tract), and qawf (which he calls not a true root but a substitution-variant of qafā, 'to track').plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Under ق-و, Ibn Fāris places qawt beside qawb (a hollowed, carved-out shape), qawd (extension, on the ground or through the air — also the root of qiyāda, leadership-by-leading), qawr (roundness), qawz (a sand-dune), qawḍ (a structure's collapse), qawṭ (a small flock), qawʿ (a flat open tract), and qawf (which he calls not a true root but a substitution-variant of qafā, 'to track'). None of these obviously converges on holding/sustaining. More suggestive among the permutations is waqt, thirteen times attested and glossed as ḥadd al-shayʾ wa-kunhuhu fī zamān, 'the delimiting of a thing's defined extent in time' — waqt is a measured portion of time exactly as qūt is a measured portion of sustenance — while tawq, 'the soul's yearning' (nizāʿ al-nafs), touches the same field of bodily need from the side of craving. These are juxtapositions of the kind Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation looks for, not claims of common derivation.
Draws on: maqayis nucleus · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, nucleus q-w and permutations w-q-t, t-w-q
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix ق-و-ت (link not verified)
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for q-w-t has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for q-w-t has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian. The semantic field of nourishment/sustenance is covered in those languages by other roots (e.g. Hebrew √lḥm, Aramaic/Syriac √zwn). There is no basis for treating qūt as a loanword.
Draws on: comparative check
Quranic exegesisAt 41:10, wa-qaddara fīhā aqwātahā, al-Ṭabarī glosses aqwāt as mā yuqtātu bihi min al-rizq li-ahlihā, the provisions apportioned to each land's inhabitants;well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 41:10, wa-qaddara fīhā aqwātahā, al-Ṭabarī glosses aqwāt as mā yuqtātu bihi min al-rizq li-ahlihā, the provisions apportioned to each land's inhabitants; al-Zamakhsharī stresses that qaddara ties this apportionment to precise measure, echoing waqt's sense of delimited allotment. At 4:85, wa-kāna Allāhu ʿalā kulli shayʾin muqītan, al-Ṭabarī records the early readings muqtadir, ḥāfiẓ, and shāhid, in the context of a verse on intercession and requital, so muqīt names God's full capacity to recompense every deed. Al-Rāzī develops this as a statement of comprehensive, unopposed divine qudra. Al-Rāghib's synthesis, qāʾiman ʿalayhi yaḥfaẓuhu wa-yaqūtuhu, is the anchor most later commentators draw on for muqīt, holding together guardianship, capacity, and sustenance.
Draws on: tabari · zamakhshari · razi · raghib
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