Root · 86 in the Quran · 7 in 6 texts of the library
مول (root mwl)
الميم والواو واللام كلمة واحدة هي تمول الرجل اتخذ مالا ومال يمال كثر ماله ويقولون في قول القائل — ملاءى من الماء كعين …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of م و ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
2 words2 verbs
- مالَlean; bend
- مَوَّلَfinance; fund
The whole family1 group, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs2مالَ · مَوَّلَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- مالَlean; bendautoForm Ilibrary ×3Ibn Fāris
- مَوَّلَfinance; fundautoForm IIlibrary ×1
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 2 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
Ibn Fāris · 395الميم والواو واللام كلمة واحدة هي تمول الرجل اتخذ مالا ومال يمال كثر ماله ويقولون في قول القائل — ملاءى من الماء كعين الموله … إن المولة العنكبوت وفيه نظر
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
م و ل
الميم والواو واللام كلمة واحدة هي تمول الرجل اتخذ مالا ومال يمال كثر ماله ويقولون في قول القائل ملاءى من الماء كعين الموله إن المولة العنكبوت وفيه نظر
m-w-l is a single word: it is tamawwala al-rajul, meaning the man acquired wealth, and māla yumālu means his wealth increased. And regarding the poet's saying 'malā'ay min al-mā' ka-ʿayn al-mūlah,' they say al-mūlah is the spider, though there is doubt in this. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗al-Khalīl: used ↗Quran ×86
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
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- لlāmedge of the tongue · voiced, in betweenI. 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 ↗
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 ↗
ل
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان، من بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى، مما فويق الضاحك والناب والرباعية والثنية، مخرج اللام
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, just above the premolar, the canine, the lateral and the central incisor, is the place of the lām. Ibn Jinnī, lines 977–978 ↗
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 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 2582ل
Level of existence: السماء الثالثة · the third heaven
Divine Name: القاهر · the Subduer (al-Qāhir)
Lunar mansion: العوا · al-ʿAwwā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64654Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2576 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
منها دون الألف فطبعها الحرارة واليبوسة
[Zāy and lām] of it, excluding alif: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2577Meaning 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.
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.
ل
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي حصول المتكلم على شيء عظيم، وتكون إشارة إلى شيء عظيم.
It is the speaker's attaining of something great, and it serves as an indication of something great.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا نهاية له.
It is an indication of the thing that has no end.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة من المتكلم إلى وجود ذاته أو إلى ذاته.
It is an indication by the speaker of the existence of his self, or of his self.
Two-letter nucleus22 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterم 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 29489 ↗
- موثالميم والواو والثاء كلمة يقولون مثت الشيء في الماء مرسته بيدي أموثه موثا ومثته أميثه ميثا كذلكL29502
- موجالميم والواو والجيم أصل واحد يدل على اضطراب في الشيء وماج الناس يموجون إذا اضطربوا وماج أمرهم ومرج اضطرب والموج موج البحر سمى لاضطرابه وماج يموج موجا Q 7 · L29505
- مورالميم والواو والراء أصل صحيح يدل على تردد ومار الدم على وجه الأرض يمور انصب وتردد وأمرت دمه فمار وفي الحديث أمر الدم بما شئت ويروى أمر الدم من مرى يمرQ 3 · L29509
- موسالميم والواو والسين يقولون الموس حلق الرأس ويقال في النسبة إلى موسى موسوي وقال الكسائي ينسب إلى موسى وعيسى وما أشبههما مما فيه الياء زائدة موسى وعيسى L29522
- موصالميم والواو والصاد كلمة واحدة هو الموص غسل الثوبL29526
- موعالميم والواو والعين ماع الصفر والفضة في النار يموع ويميع ذابL29530
- موقالميم والواو والقاف كلمتان لا يرجعان إلى أصل واحد والموق حمق في غباوة ويقولون ماق البيع يموق رخصL29532
- مولالميم والواو واللام كلمة واحدة هي تمول الرجل اتخذ مالا ومال يمال كثر ماله ويقولون في قول القائل — ملاءى من الماء كعين الموله … إن المولة العنكبوت وفيهQ 86 · L29535
- مومالميم والواو والميم كلمتان متباينتان جدا الموم البرسام وميم الرجل فهو مموم والموماة المفازة الواسعة الملساء جمعها موامL29539
- مونالميم والواو والنون كلمة واحدة وهي المون أن تمون عيالك أي تقوم بكفايتهم وتتحمل مؤونتهم و أما المؤونة فمن المون والأصل فيها موونة بغير همزةL29542
- موهالميم والواو والهاء أصل صحيح واحد ومنه يتفرع كلمه وهي الموه أصل بناء الماء وتصغيره مويهQ 63 · L29546
- ميثالميم والياء والثاء كلمة تدل على سهولة في شيءL29560
- ميحالميم والياء والحاء أصل صحيح يدل على إعطاء وأصله في الاستسقاء وماح يميح انحدر في الركى فملا الدلوL29563
- ميدالميم والياء والدال أصلان صحيحان أحدهما يدل على حركة في شيء والآخر على نفع وعطاءQ 5 · L29568
- ميرالميم والياء والراء أصل صحيح هو المير ومرت ميرا والميرة الطعام له إلى بلده وقالوا ما عنده خير ولا ميرQ 1 · L29581
- ميزالميم والياء والزاء أصل صحيح يدل على تزيل شيء من شيء وتزييله وميزته تمييزا ومزته ميزا وامتازوا تميز بعضهم من بعض ويكاد يتميز غيظا أي يتقطع وانماز الشيQ 4 · L29584
- ميسالميم والياء والسين كلمة تدل على ميلان وماس ميسانا تبختر وماس الغصن أيضا والميس شجرL29589
- ميشالميم والياء والشين أصل يدل على خلط شيء بشيء ونفشه وماشت المرأة القطن بيدها بعد الحلج ومنه قولهم للرجل إذا أخبر ببعض الحديث وكتم بعضا قد ماش يميش وهو L29592
- ميطالميم والياء والطاء كلمة صحيحة تدل على دفع ومدافعة وماطه عنه دفعه ومطت الأذى عن الطريقL29597
- ميعالميم والياء والعين كلمة صحيحة تدل على جريان شيء واضطراب شيء وحركته وماع الشيء يميع جرى على وجه الأرض والمائع كل شيء ذائب ومنه الميعة والنشاط وذلك للحL29602
- ميلالميم والياء واللام كلمة صحيحة تدل على انحراف في الشيء إلى جانب منه مال يميل ميلا فإن كان خلقة في الشيء فميلQ 6 · L29606
- مينالميم والياء والنون كلمة واحدة هي المين الكذب ومان يمينL29614
In the sister scriptsHebrew מ ו לSyriac ܡ ܘ ܠ
| Arabic | م و ل |
| Hebrew | מ ו ל |
| Syriac | ܡ ܘ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩣 𐩥 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤌 𐤅 𐤋 |
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.
Reference