Root · 4 in the Quran · 20 in 5 texts of the library
مجدIbn Fāris's own gloss for this root is not among the excerpts given here; across the … (root mjd)
English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of م ج د that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
20 words7 verbs5 verbal nouns1 participle2 intensives and elatives1 other noun4 plurals
- مَجِيد—
- مَجْدglory
- مَجَّدَpraise; extol
- تَمَاجَدَhe mentioned his
- أَمْجَدmore, or most, glorious, honourable, noble
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7مَجَدَ · مَجَّدَ · مَاجَدَ
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.”)
- مَجَدَForm ILane
- مَجَّدَpraise; extolautoForm IIlibrary ×1Lane
- مَاجَدَForm IIILane
- أَمْجَدَLane: see Form I, IIForm IVLane
Verbal nouns5مَجْد · تَمْجِيد · مَجَادَة
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2مَجِيد · أَمْجَد
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 14 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 · 170Majd (المجد): the attainment of honor/nobility.
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-majd (المجد): generosity/nobility.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-majd (المجد): breadth/amplitude in generosity and majesty;
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-majd (المجد): manliness/chivalry (murū'a) and generosity (sakhā').
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 ج د
الميم والجيم والدال أصل صحيح يدل على بلوغ النهاية ولا يكون إلا في محمود منه المجد بلوغ النهاية في الكرم والله الماجد والمجيد لا كرم فوق كرمه وتقول العرب ماجد فلان فلانا فاخره ويقولون مثلا في كل شجر نار واستمجد المرخ والع …
m-j-d: a sound root that indicates reaching the utmost limit, and it is used only of what is praiseworthy. From it, al-majd is reaching the utmost limit in generosity, and Allāh is al-Mājid and al-Majīd, meaning there is no generosity above His generosity. The Arabs say 'mājada fulānun fulānan,' meaning he vied with him in glory. And they say as a proverb, 'in every tree there is fire,' and al-markh and al-ʿ… 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
- جjīmmiddle of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- دdāltongue-tip, roots of the teeth · 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
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 ↗
ج
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26553 ↗
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى، مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 974 ↗
د
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
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 2582ج
Level of existence: الفلك الأطلس فلك البروج · the Atlas (starless) sphere, the sphere of the zodiacal signs
Divine Name: الغني · al-Ghanī, the Independent
Lunar mansion: الطرف · al-Ṭarf
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62085Spheres 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 2582د
Level of existence: السماء الدنيا · the lowest heaven (al-samāʾ al-dunyā)
Divine Name: المبين · the Clarifier (al-Mubīn)
Lunar mansion: الأكليل · al-Iklīl
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64682Spheres 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
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.
ج
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي نبوة أو ولاية إذا كان قبلها أو بعدها ما يدل على ذلك، وإلا فهي للخير الذي لا يزول أبدا.
It is prophethood or sainthood (walāya) if something before or after it indicates that. Otherwise it is for the good that never ceases.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الخير الذي يؤكل أو ينتفع الناس منه.
It is the good that is eaten, or from which people derive benefit.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الخير القليل الذي في الذات من نور الإيمان.
It is the small good within the self from the light of faith.
د
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى خارج عن الذات.
It is an indication of something external to the self.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى ما هو قليل أو قبيح ومعه غضب فيهما.
It is an indication of what is small or ugly, accompanied by anger in both cases.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما في الذات أو إلى ما هو داخل عليها أو إلى ما هو قريب منها.
It is an indication of what is in the self, or what is entering upon it, or what is near to it.
Two-letter nucleus0 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterم ج
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 29731 ↗
In the sister scriptsHebrew מ ג דSyriac ܡ ܓ ܕ
| Arabic | م ج د |
| Hebrew | מ ג ד |
| Syriac | ܡ ܓ ܕ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩣 𐩴 𐩵 |
| Phoenician | 𐤌 𐤂 𐤃 |
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 al-majd as nayl al-sharaf, gives majada/majuda as two dialectal verbs, and extends the root physically: majadat al-ibil, camels reaching near-satiety on pasture, with amjada said of a herdsman who grazes and fattens them well in early spring.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl (al-ʿAyn) defines al-majd as nayl al-sharaf, gives majada/majuda as two dialectal verbs, and extends the root physically: majadat al-ibil, camels reaching near-satiety on pasture, with amjada said of a herdsman who grazes and fattens them well in early spring. Al-Jawharī (Ṣiḥāḥ) glosses al-majd as karam and al-majīd as karīm, and reports Ibn al-Sikkīt's distinction that sharaf/majd require inherited nobility through one's forefathers, whereas ḥasab/karam can belong to an individual regardless of lineage; he preserves the pasturing sense (nayl al-khalā, 'reaching abundant fresh herbage'). Al-Rāghib (Mufradāt) defines al-majd as sa'ah fī al-karam wa-l-jalāl, 'breadth in generosity and majesty,' tracing it to the same image of camels finding a wide, abundant pasture, and reads God's name al-Majīd and the Qur'ān's epithet al-majīd (Q50:1) as denoting an unceasing outpouring of favor and comprehensive excellence, paired with karīm. Ibn Manẓūr (Lisān) synthesizes the strand: al-majd as murūʾa and sakhāʾ, debates whether it strictly requires noble ancestry or can be self-achieved honor, and keeps the social sense of tamājud, mutual boasting of glory, and mājada, contesting for glory.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, root م ج د
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root م ج د
- al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, root م ج د
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, root م ج د
Letters & soundIn the letter-symbolism scheme attributed to Ibn ʿArabī (Breath of the All-Merciful), م stands for the human being, ج for the Atlas/starless sphere bearing the zodiacal signs, and د for the lowest heaven;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the letter-symbolism scheme attributed to Ibn ʿArabī (Breath of the All-Merciful), م stands for the human being, ج for the Atlas/starless sphere bearing the zodiacal signs, and د for the lowest heaven; al-Dabbāgh's parallel fatḥa-values give م as all created beings, ج as prophethood or sainthood (or perpetual good), and د as an indication of something external to the self. Read together speculatively, م-ج-د could be taken as the human being's traversal through the celestial/prophetic sphere toward a station outside the self — an image that resonates loosely with majd as an outward-facing, ancestrally-conferred glory rather than an inward trait. This is a suggestive reading only; mainstream historical linguistics does not treat individual Arabic letters as bearers of fixed semantic content, and no claim of causal derivation is intended.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh_fatha
- Ibn ʿArabī letter-correspondences (akbari198 scheme)
- al-Dabbāgh, letter meanings under fatḥa
Root structureThe permutation set for م-ج-د includes جمد, glossed by Ibn Fāris as jumūs al-shayʾ al-māʾiʿ min bard, 'the congealing of a fluid thing from cold' — a solidifying, firming image;uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
The permutation set for م-ج-د includes جمد, glossed by Ibn Fāris as jumūs al-shayʾ al-māʾiʿ min bard, 'the congealing of a fluid thing from cold' — a solidifying, firming image; دمج, glossed as al-inṭiwāʾ wa-l-satr, 'enfolding and concealment'; and دجم, noted only as kalima wāḥida, a single isolated usage. Set beside these siblings, majd's core image of camels reaching near-fullness on rich pasture (a body filling out, becoming firm and ample) sits suggestively near jamada's firming-by-cold and damaja's enfolding-within, though Ibn Fāris gives no explicit derivational link between the chapters. This is offered as juxtaposition of the mo-letter permutation set, not as an asserted etymology.
Draws on: nucleusSiblings · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, siblings ج م د / د م ج / د ج م
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew preserves a cognate noun מֶגֶד (meged), 'choice, excellent thing, precious produce' (e.g.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew preserves a cognate noun מֶגֶד (meged), 'choice, excellent thing, precious produce' (e.g. Deuteronomy 33:13–16, Song of Songs 4:13, 4:16, 7:14), from the same m-g-d root, and Ugaritic mgd shows a related sense of 'precious things.' No confident Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez cognate for this specific root is available from standard reference works consulted here. There is no reason to treat Arabic majd as a loanword; it appears to be an inherited West Semitic root with a semantic range running from 'choice/precious' to 'glory, nobility.'
Draws on: comparative
- BDB, מֶגֶד
- Wiktionary, מגד ↗
Quranic exegesisAl-majīd occurs of God (Q11:73, in the angels' greeting to Ibrāhīm's household: innahu ḥamīdun majīd) and of the Qur'ān (Q50:1, Q85:21) and God's Throne (Q85:15).well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Al-majīd occurs of God (Q11:73, in the angels' greeting to Ibrāhīm's household: innahu ḥamīdun majīd) and of the Qur'ān (Q50:1, Q85:21) and God's Throne (Q85:15). Al-Ṭabarī reads majīd applied to God as denoting abundant generosity and nobility surpassing all others, and applied to the Qur'ān as its honored, elevated rank. Al-Zamakhsharī parses majīd on the Qur'ān as sharaf together with kathrat al-khayr, 'abundance of good,' paralleling the epithet karīm used elsewhere of the same text (Q56:77), so that majd denotes comprehensive excellence of content and station. Al-Rāzī, commenting on Q11:73, links ḥamīd (praised) with majīd (glorious), reading majd as the abundance and greatness of praiseworthy qualities, fitting the noble lineage of Ibrāhīm's household; al-Rāghib similarly ties majīd, wherever it occurs of God, the Qur'ān, or the Throne, to sa'ah in karam and jalāl.
Reference