Root · 3 in the Quran · 7 in 7 texts of the library
متنa single sound root meaning firmness/hardness in a thing combined with extension and … (root mtn)
الميم والتاء والنون أصل صحيح واحد يدل على صلابة في الشيء مع امتداد وطول منه المتن ما صلب من الأرض وارتفع وانقاد والجمع …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of م ت ن that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
4 words1 verb1 intensive or elative1 other noun1 plural
- مَتِين—
- أَمْتَنstronger; strongest
- مَتْنdeck; board
- مَتَنَ—
The whole family4 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs1مَتَنَ
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 (a; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- مَتَنَForm Ilibrary ×1Ibn Fāris
Intensives, qualities and the elative1أَمْتَن
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- أَمْتَنstronger; strongestautoelative or colour adjective (afʿal)library ×1
Other nouns1مَتْن
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- مَتْنdeck; boardautonounlibrary ×1Ibn Fāris
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 4 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 · 170Al-matn (المتن) and al-matnah (المتنة) are two [dialectal] variants, used both masculine and feminine;
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 · 393Al-matn (المتن) of the land is what is hard and elevated;
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters mīm, tā', and nūn form one sound root indicating firmness/hardness in a thing together with extension and length.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-matnān (المتنان) are the two [ridges] flanking the backbone, and by resemblance to it the matn of the land is so named.
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-matn (المتن) of anything is what is hard in its back/ridge;
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.
م ت ن
الميم والتاء والنون أصل صحيح واحد يدل على صلابة في الشيء مع امتداد وطول منه المتن ما صلب من الأرض وارتفع وانقاد والجمع متان ورأيته بذلك المتن ومنه شبه المتنان من الإنسان مكتنفا الصلب من عصب ولحم ومتنته ضربت متنه ويقولون …
m-t-n: one sound root that indicates hardness in a thing along with extension and length. From it, al-matn is what is hard, elevated, and continuous of the ground, and the plural is mitān. 'I saw him at that matn.' From it also, the two matns of a person are what flank the back, [made of] sinew and flesh, and 'matantuhu' means I struck his matn. And they say … 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
- مmīmbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- تtāʾtongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiceless, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- نnūntip of the tongue · 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
م
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 ↗
ن
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان ما بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى وما فويق الثنايا مخرج النون
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 and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Sībawayh, lines 26555–26556 ↗
ومن طرف اللسان بينه وبين ما فويق الثنايا، مخرج النون
From the tip of the tongue, between it and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Ibn Jinnī, line 979 ↗
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
م
Level of existence: الإنسان · the human being
Divine Name: الجامع · al-Jāmiʿ, the Gatherer
Lunar mansion: المؤخر · al-Muʾakhkhar
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62119Spheres 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 2582ن
Level of existence: السماء الرابعة · the fourth heaven
Divine Name: النور · the Light (al-Nūr)
Lunar mansion: السماك · al-Simāk
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64663Spheres 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
م
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع المكونات.
It is all created beings.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العزيز القليل كماء العين، ومنه قيل مومو.
It is the precious, scarce thing, like the water of the eye; from it comes the expression 'mūmū'.
With kasra ـِ
فهي نور الذات ظاهرا كما في العين، وباطنا كما في القلب.
It is the light of the self, outwardly as in the eye and inwardly as in the heart.
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.
ن
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الخير الساكن في الذات الشاعل فيها.
It is the good that dwells in the self, kindling [al-shāʿil, as written] within it.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الخير الكامل أو النور الساطع.
It is an indication of perfect good or radiant light.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى شيء يدركه المتكلم أو هو له.
It is an indication of something that the speaker perceives or that belongs to him.
Two-letter nucleus7 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterم ت
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 29651 ↗
- مترالميم والتاء والراء يقولون وما أدري ما هو مترت الشيء قطعته ولعله من الإبدال وقال ابن دريد مترته مترا وامتر الحبل امتدL29657
- متسالميم والتاء والسين فيه كلمة حكاها ابن دريد هي متسه يمتسه متسا أراغه لينتزعه من بيت أو غيره ( متع ) الميم والتاء والعين اصل صحيح يدل على منفعة وامتدادL29660
- متكالميم والتاء والكاف يقولون المتك الأترج ويقال الزماورد ويقال المتك ما تبقيه الخاتنةL29682
- متلالميم والتاء واللام يقولون متله متلا زعزعهL29685
- متنالميم والتاء والنون أصل صحيح واحد يدل على صلابة في الشيء مع امتداد وطول منه المتن ما صلب من الأرض وارتفع وانقاد والجمع متان ورأيته بذلك المتن ومنه شبهQ 3 · L29687
- متهالميم والتاء والهاء يقولون التمته الذهاب في البطالة والغواية وهو عندنا من باب الإبدال الهاء من الحاء كأنه التمتح وقد ذكرناه ومتهت الدلو متحتهاL29699
- متىالميم والتاء والحرف فيه ثلاث كلمات إحداها يستفهم بها عن زمان تقول متى يخرج زيد والكلمة الأخرى من باب الإبدال يقولون تمتى في نزع القوس وهو من تمطى وتمطL29703
In the sister scriptsHebrew מ ת נSyriac ܡ ܬ ܢ
| Arabic | م ت ن |
| Hebrew | מ ת נ |
| Syriac | ܡ ܬ ܢ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩣 𐩩 𐩬 |
| Phoenician | 𐤌 𐤕 𐤍 |
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 begins with the anatomical sense: al-matnān, the two sinew-bound bands of muscle flanking the spine, alongside matn al-arḍ (raised, hard ground) and the sword's matn.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl begins with the anatomical sense: al-matnān, the two sinew-bound bands of muscle flanking the spine, alongside matn al-arḍ (raised, hard ground) and the sword's matn. Al-Jawharī adds the adjectival matīn ('firm, solid,' from matuna), matn al-sahm (the arrow-shaft below the feathers), and the extended verb phrases mātana ('to go to an extreme distance') and mātaha ('to delay, put off'). Ibn Fāris unifies these under one sense — hardness joined with extension — explaining even matn al-yawm ('to travel a whole day') and mumātanat al-shāʿirayn (two poets extending verses toward a shared endpoint) as figurative extensions of the same image. Al-Rāghib traces matīn back explicitly to the anatomical matnān, and cites Q51:58's 'dhū al-quwwati al-matīn' as the scriptural instance of the adjective applied to God's power. Ibn Manẓūr broadens matn to any hardened, prominent surface (land, waterskin, sword), citing al-Ḥārith b. Ḥilliza's verse on crossing the hard desert flats (mitān al-sijsij).
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, s.v. m-t-n
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, s.v. m-t-n
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, s.v. m-t-n
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, s.v. m-t-n
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. m-t-n
Letters & soundMīm corresponds in Ibn ʿArabī's scheme to the human being;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Mīm corresponds in Ibn ʿArabī's scheme to the human being; tāʾ has no assigned heaven in the akbarī list but al-Dabbāgh reads its fatḥa as signaling abundant, great good; nūn corresponds to the fourth heaven, and its fatḥa signals the good residing and kindling within the self. Read together, suggestively, mīm-tāʾ-nūn could be taken to point toward an inward-kindled firmness seated within the human being — a resonance with matn as the firm sinewy support of the back, and with the Qurʾānic dhū al-quwwati al-matīn as an inward, unshakeable strength. This is offered only as sound-symbolic speculation; mainstream linguistics finds no causal basis for it.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh_fatha
- Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, letters of the Breath (bāb 198)
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings of the vowel points
Root structureThe م-ت nucleus siblings repeatedly touch extension and duration: متع denotes benefit joined with duration/extension (imtidād), متر concerns cutting or stretching a rope, and متى shares a root-sense of 'stretching' with tamaṭṭā in drawing a bow.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
The م-ت nucleus siblings repeatedly touch extension and duration: متع denotes benefit joined with duration/extension (imtidād), متر concerns cutting or stretching a rope, and متى shares a root-sense of 'stretching' with tamaṭṭā in drawing a bow. Against this family, matn's 'firmness with extension' fits naturally rather than standing apart, unlike karam among its siblings. None of the full permutations of م-ت-ن (منت, تمن, تنم, نمت, نتم) is attested as an independent word, so Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation finds no real purchase here beyond the primary root itself.
Draws on: maqayis nucleus · maqayis permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, chapters mīm-tāʾ-*
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix ↗
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew מָתְנַיִם (motnayim, 'loins, waist,' e.g.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew מָתְנַיִם (motnayim, 'loins, waist,' e.g. Exodus 12:11) is a plausible cognate to Arabic matn ('the sinewy flank of the back'), both terms denoting the paired lower-back/loin region in a Semitic anatomical vocabulary. Akkadian matnu, glossed in Akkadian lexica as 'sinew, tendon,' also aligns closely with the anatomical sense preserved by al-Khalīl. No loanword relationship is indicated; the cognate set instead points to an old, shared Semitic anatomical term later generalized in Arabic to hardness-with-extension.
Draws on: cognate-lexicon
- Brown–Driver–Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, s.v. מָתְנַיִם
- Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), s.v. matnu
Quranic exegesisBoth cited occurrences apply matīn exclusively to a divine attribute.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Both cited occurrences apply matīn exclusively to a divine attribute. At Q51:58, 'inna Allāha huwa al-razzāqu dhū al-quwwati al-matīn,' al-Ṭabarī, al-Zamakhsharī, and al-Rāzī gloss matīn as a superlative of firmness — power that admits no weakening or depletion, fitting God's status as al-Razzāq. At Q7:183, 'wa-umlī lahum inna kaydī matīn,' the exegetes read matīn as describing God's plan (kayd) against wrongdoers as unbreakable and certain to reach its effect despite the respite granted. In both cases the commentators stress that matīn, unlike its use for a human back or a rope, denotes an absolute firmness proper only to God.
Philosophy & kalāmAl-Matīn as one of the divine Names is treated in kalām theology alongside al-Qawī ('the Strong') under the attribute of quwwa/qudra, denoting an intensity of power beyond ordinary strength — power that cannot be sapped or opposed.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Al-Matīn as one of the divine Names is treated in kalām theology alongside al-Qawī ('the Strong') under the attribute of quwwa/qudra, denoting an intensity of power beyond ordinary strength — power that cannot be sapped or opposed. Al-Ghazālī's commentary on the divine names (al-Maqṣad al-Asnā) glosses al-Matīn as signifying the utmost firmness of that power, distinguishing it from human matn's merely physical firmness. This is a modest technical use within attribute-theology rather than a load-bearing term like wujūd or ḥaqq.
Draws on: kalam divine names
- al-Ghazālī, al-Maqṣad al-Asnā fī Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-Ḥusnā, s.v. al-Matīn
Reference