Root · 5 in the Quran · 25 in 6 texts of the library
مضيpenetration and passing — to go past, to take effect (root mdy)
الميم والضاد والحرف المعتل أصل صحيح يدل على نفاذ ومرور ومضى يمضي مضيا والمضاء النفاذ في الأمر والمضواء التقدم قال …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of م ض ي that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
3 words2 verbs1 participle
- مَضَىcontinue; proceed
- أَمْضَىspend; accomplish
- ماضِيpast; bygone
The whole family2 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs2مَضَى · أَمْضَى
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 يَفْعِلُ (a – i; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- مَضَىcontinue; proceedautoForm IQurʾān ×4library ×8Ibn Fāris
- أَمْضَىspend; accomplishautoForm IVlibrary ×3
Participles1ماضِي
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- ماضِيpast; bygoneautoactive, Form Ilibrary ×3
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 3 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 · 170Maḍā (مضى) in his affair [means] maḍāʾ (مضاء) [effectiveness/resolve].
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 · 393Maḍā al-shayʾu maḍiyyan (مضى الشيء مضيا): it passed away/elapsed.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The mīm, ḍād, and the weak letter (yāʾ) form a sound root indicating penetration and passage/passing.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-maḍī and al-maḍāʾ (المضي، المضاء): penetration/passing through;
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 · 711Maḍā al-shayʾu yamḍī maḍiyyan wa-maḍāʾan wa-muḍuwwan (مضى الشيء يمضي مضيا ومضاء ومضوا): it elapsed and went away;
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 ض ي
الميم والضاد والحرف المعتل أصل صحيح يدل على نفاذ ومرور ومضى يمضي مضيا والمضاء النفاذ في الأمر والمضواء التقدم
m-ḍ-w is a sound root indicating penetration and passing. maḍā yamḍī maḍiyyan. al-maḍā' is penetration in a matter, and al-maḍwā' is going ahead/precedence. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Quran ×5
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
- ضḍādside of the tongue, by the molars · voiced, continuant, velarisedSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle 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 ↗
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 ↗
ي
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 ↗
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 2582ض
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 2580ي
Level of existence: السماء الأولى · The First Heaven
Divine Name: الرب · The Lord (al-Rabb)
Lunar mansion: الخرتان · al-Kharatān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64500Spheres 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.
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.
ي
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي للنداء، وقد يؤكد بها.
It is for the vocative (calling), and it may be used for emphasis.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا يثبت كالبرق ونحوه.
It is an indication of the thing that does not remain fixed, like lightning and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يستحيا به أو يستحيا منه كالعورة.
It is an indication of the thing that causes shame, or of which one is ashamed, like the private parts.
Two-letter nucleus3 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterم 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 30239 ↗
- مضىالميم والضاد والحرف المعتل أصل صحيح يدل على نفاذ ومرور ومضى يمضي مضيا والمضاء النفاذ في الأمر والمضواء التقدمQ 5 · L30247
- مضحالميم والضاد والحاء كلمة واحدة هي مضح عرضه يمضحه مضحا عابه وطعن فيه وأمضحه أيضاL30251
- مضرالميم والضاد والراء أصل صحيح قليل الفروع فالمضر بناء قولك لبن مضر وماضر شديد الحموضة ويقال اشتقاق مضر منه والتمضر التعصب لمضر وقولهم ذهب دمه خضرا مضراL30254
In the sister scriptsHebrew מ צ יSyriac ܡ ܥ ܝ
| Arabic | م ض ي |
| Hebrew | מ צ י |
| Syriac | ܡ ܥ ܝ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩣 𐩳 𐩺 |
| Phoenician | 𐤌 𐤑 𐤉 |
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 gives the bare notion of resolute forward motion: مضى في أمره مضاء (he was decisive/effective in his affair) and مضى الشيء يمضي مضياً (the thing went, passed), with abū l-maḍāʾ as an epithet for a swift horse.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
al-Khalīl gives the bare notion of resolute forward motion: مضى في أمره مضاء (he was decisive/effective in his affair) and مضى الشيء يمضي مضياً (the thing went, passed), with abū l-maḍāʾ as an epithet for a swift horse. al-Jawharī separates a plain sense — مضى الشيء مضياً: ذهب (it passed away) — from the technical مضى في الأمر مضاءً: نفذ (he was effective/resolute in the matter), and records a rare variant مضوّ on the pattern of وقود, plus المضواء as 'being ahead, precedence.' Ibn Fāris fixes the single sound-meaning unifying these: نفاذ ومرور, 'penetration and passing,' under which both plain motion and effective execution fall. al-Rāghib extends the root to both bodies and events (يقال ذلك في الأعيان والأحداث), citing Q43:8 ومضى مثل الأولين and Q8:38 قد مضت سنة الأولين, where maḍā names the passing of earlier generations as an exemplary precedent. Ibn Manẓūr gathers further idioms — مضى بسبيله (he died), أمضى الأمر (he executed the matter, via a hadith on unhesitating charity), and مضى السيف مضاءً: قطع (the sword 'went,' i.e. it cut) — spreading the root from locomotion to legal execution to a blade's sharpness.
Draws on: al-Khalil al-Ayn · al-Jawhari Sihah · Ibn Faris Maqayis · al-Raghib Mufradat · Ibn Manzur Lisan
- Wiktionary root appendix م ض ي (link not verified)
Letters & soundIn the given Breath-of-the-All-Merciful correspondences, م is assigned to the human being (al-insān), ي to the First Heaven, and ض to the Second Heaven;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the given Breath-of-the-All-Merciful correspondences, م is assigned to the human being (al-insān), ي to the First Heaven, and ض to the Second Heaven; on this scheme, مضى — the human (م) moving past/through the two heavens (ي، ض) — could be read as figuring forward motion as a human traversal of the created order, though this is a schematic modern juxtaposition, not Ibn ʿArabī's own gloss of this word. al-Dabbāgh's fatḥa-values give م as encompassing 'all created beings,' ض as expressing health and freedom from affliction, and ي as a vocative/emphatic particle; under this reading, maḍāʾ (soundness, resolve, efficacy in an affair) faintly echoes ض's sense of wellbeing. No Ibn Jinnī imsās material for this specific root is supplied. Mainstream linguistics treats such letter-symbolism as suggestive at most, with no demonstrated etymological force.
Draws on: Ibn Arabi Breath correspondences (akbari198) · al-Dabbagh fatha values
Root structureIbn Fāris places مضي in the ميم-ضاد chapter of weak-final roots, glossing the two-consonant core as نفاذ ومرور, 'penetration and passing';plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris places مضي in the ميم-ضاد chapter of weak-final roots, glossing the two-consonant core as نفاذ ومرور, 'penetration and passing'; its chapter neighbors مضح (to slander, pierce with reproach) and مضر (sourness, curdled milk, whence the tribal name Muḍar) share an image of something sharp or piercing, though Ibn Fāris asserts no derivation between them beyond shared radicals. Among the permutations of م-ض-ي, ميض, يمض and يضم are unattested, and ضمي is listed but unrecorded; ضيم, however, is a fully separate attested root meaning oppression, injustice (كالقهر والاضطهاد) — the same three letters reordered yielding a near-opposite value, being held back/wronged rather than moving freely. This is offered only as a juxtaposition of shared radicals, not a claimed etymological link.
Draws on: Ibn Faris nucleus siblings · permutations table
- Wiktionary root appendix م ض ي (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsArabic ḍād often corresponds to Hebrew/Aramaic ṣade (cf.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Arabic ḍād often corresponds to Hebrew/Aramaic ṣade (cf. arḍ/ʾereṣ), but no confident cognate for م-ض-ي in the sense 'to pass, go by' is identifiable in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez; those languages cover 'passing, going by' with different roots (e.g. Hebrew ʿ-b-r). The root shows the ordinary morphology of a native Arabic weak-final (يائي) verb, with no features suggesting borrowing.
Draws on: comparative note; no primary lexicon excerpts supplied
Quranic exegesisAt Q15:65, in the Lot narrative, the command فأسر بأهلك...plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q15:65, in the Lot narrative, the command فأسر بأهلك... وامضوا enjoins unimpeded, forward departure; exegetes read maḍāʾ here against the paired instruction that none should turn back (iltifāt), making maḍāʾ the opposite of looking behind. At Q36:67, فما استطاعوا مضياً ولا يرجعون pairs maḍiyy with rujūʿ (return) to picture total incapacitation — unable either to advance or retreat — read as a hypothetical fixing of the disobedient in place. At Q8:38, قد مضت سنة الأولين treats maḍā as describing the 'way/practice' (sunna) of earlier nations as an already-enacted precedent; al-Rāghib's own Mufradāt entry is built on this verse, extending maḍā to events (aḥdāth) and not only bodies, so that the past conduct of nations stands as an exemplary warning.
Reference