نونThe fish; Ibn Fāris treats this as the root's single sense, with the sword-name and other … (root nwn)

Al-nūn (النون) is a letter [written as] two nūns with a wāw between them, which is a lengthening (madda); and if it were said in poetry as "nun" (نن) [without the wāw], that would also be correct. And al-nūn (النون) [means] [the fish], and its plural is al-nīnān (النينان). Dhū al-Nūn (ذو النون) is Yūnus (Jonah), peace be upon him. And al-nūn (النون) [means] the blade/edge of a sword; it is also said [to mean] that which has a groove (shaṭbah) on each of its two sides. He said: "And [the owner] of the two-edged [sword] (dhū al-nūnayn), a slaughterer, sharp..." And al-nūnān (النونان) [means] the scissors/shears. And Naynawā (نينوى) is the city to which Yūnus was sent.

Al-nūn (النون) [means] the fish, and its plural is anwān (أنوان) and nīnān (نينان). Dhū al-Nūn (ذو النون) is the epithet of Yūnus ibn Mattā (يونس بن متى), peace be upon him. And al-nūn (النون) [means] the blade/edge of a sword. The poet said: "With the two-edged one (dhī nūnayn), a slaughterer, sharp..." And al-nūn (النون) is [also] the name of a sword belonging to one of the Arabs. He said: "I shall put it in place of the nūn that was mine, and I did not give it out of the affection of intimacy (ʿirq al-khilāl)..." He means: 'I shall put this sword which I have acquired in place of that other sword, and I did not give the other one out of friendship, but rather took it by force.' And al-nūn (النون) is one of the letters of the alphabet (ḥurūf al-muʿjam), being one of the augment letters (ḥurūf al-ziyādāt). It may serve for emphasis (taʾkīd), attached to the imperfect verb after the lām of the oath, as when you say: 'Wallāhi la-aḍribanna Zaydan' (والله لأضربن زيدا), 'By God, I shall surely strike Zayd.' It is likewise attached after the imperative and the prohibition: you say 'Uḍribanna Zaydan' (اضربن زيدا), 'Strike Zayd!' and 'Lā taḍribanna ʿAmran' (ولا تضربن عمرا), 'Do not strike ʿAmr!' It is attached in interrogation: you say 'Hal taḍribanna Zaydan' (هل تضربن زيدا). And after the conditional: as when you say 'Immā taḍribanna Zaydan uḍribhu' (إما تضربن زيدا اضربه) — when 'mā' (ما) is added to 'in' (إن), you add to the verb of the condition the emphatic nūn. God Almighty said: 'Fa-immā tathqafannahum fī al-ḥarbi fasharrid bihim man khalfahum' — 'So if you gain the mastery over them in war, disperse by them those behind them' [Qur'an, al-Anfāl 8:57]. You say for the dual: 'La-taḍribānna Zaydan yā rajulān' (لتضربان زيدا يا رجلان). For the [masculine] plural: 'Yā rijāl uḍribunna Zaydan' (يا رجال اضربن زيدا), with the bāʾ vowelled by ḍamma; for a single woman: 'Yā imraʾatu uḍribinna Zaydan' (يا امرأة اضربن زيدا), with the bāʾ vowelled by kasra; and for women in the plural: 'Yā niswatu uḍribnānni Zaydan' (يا نسوة اضربنان زيدا). Its origin is 'uḍribnanna' (اضربنن) with three nūns; a separation is made between them by an alif, and the [preceding] nūn is given kasra, by analogy with the nūn of the dual. The emphatic nūn may be light (khafīfa) just as it may be doubled (mushaddada), except that the light one, when followed by a quiescent letter, is dropped; and when you pause on it, and it is preceded by a fatḥa, you turn it into an alif, as al-Aʿshā said: "Do not worship Satan — by God, worship [Him]!" And sometimes it is elided in connected speech, as the poet said: "Strike away from you the cares that beset you, as you strike with the sword the poll of the horse (qawnas al-faras)." The light [nūn] may stand in place of the doubled one, except in two positions: in the dual — 'Yā rajulān uḍribānni Zaydan' (يا رجلان اضربان زيدا) — and in the feminine plural — 'Yā niswatu uḍribnānni Zaydan' (يا نسوة اضربنان زيدا) — in these two only the doubled [nūn] is proper, lest it be confused with the nūn of the dual. Yūnus [the grammarian] permits the light one here too, but the former view is sounder. And you say: 'Nawwantu al-isma tanwīnan' (نونت الاسم تنوينا), 'I gave the noun nunation.' Tanwīn (التنوين) occurs only in nouns.

Nūn (النون), wāw (الواو), and nūn (النون) [i.e. the root n-w-n] is a single word/meaning. Al-nūn (النون) [means] the fish. And Dhū al-Nūn (ذو النون) was a sword belonging to one of the Arabs, as if it were likened to the letter nūn.

Al-nūn (النون) is the well-known letter. God Almighty said: "Nūn. By the pen..." (ن والقلم) [Qur'an, al-Qalam 68:1]. And al-nūn (النون) is [also] the great fish, and Yūnus (يونس) was named Dhū al-Nūn (ذو النون) in His saying "wa dhā al-Nūn" (وذا النون) [Qur'an, al-Anbiyāʾ 21:87], because the fish (al-nūn) had swallowed him. And the sword of al-Ḥārith ibn Ẕālim was likewise named Dhū al-Nūn (ذو النون).

Al-nūn (النون) [means] the fish, and its plural is anwān (أنوان) and nīnān (نينان); its original form is nawnān (نونان), the wāw having been changed to yāʾ because of the kasra on the nūn. In a ḥadīth of ʿAlī, peace be upon him: 'He knows the movements of the fish (al-nīnān) in the overwhelming seas.' And in the Mighty Revelation: "Nūn. By the pen" (ن والقلم). Al-Farrāʾ said: 'You may assimilate (tudghim) the final nūn or pronounce it clearly (tuẕhiruhā); pronouncing it clearly is more pleasing to me, because it is [a letter of] spelling (hijāʾ), and spelling is like something paused upon, even though it be joined [to what follows]; whoever conceals it treats it as continuous.' The reciters have read it both ways: al-Aʿmash and Ḥamza used to pronounce it clearly, while some left off the clear pronunciation. The grammarians said: it has come in the exegesis that 'nūn' is the [great] fish upon which the seven earths were spread out, and it has [also] come in the exegesis that 'nūn' is the inkwell (al-dawāh); but it has not come in the exegesis in the manner in which the [other] alphabetic letters were explained. So, whether or not it be counted among the alphabetic letters, assimilation (idghām) is permissible and clear pronunciation (tabyīn) is permissible, but silencing (iskān) cannot occur except where it retains [something of] the alphabetic letter [i.e. its identity]. Al-Azharī said: 'Nūn. By the pen' — nothing is permissible in it save [treating it as] spelling; do you not see that the scribes of the Qurʾanic text wrote it simply as 'ن'? Had the inkwell or the fish been meant by it, it would have been written out in full as 'nūn.' Al-Ḥasan and Qatāda said, concerning His saying "Nūn. By the pen," [that it means]: the inkwell and the pen. And [as for] 'wa mā yasṭurūn' (وما يسطرون): he said, 'and what they write.' It is related from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said: 'The first thing God created was the pen. He said to it: Write! It said: O Lord, what shall I write? He said: The decree (al-qadar). So it wrote on that day everything that would come to be until the establishment of the Hour. Then He created the Nūn [the great fish], and spread the earth out upon it; the Nūn stirred, and the earth shook; so He created the mountains and made [the earth] firm by means of them.' Then Ibn ʿAbbās recited: "Nūn. By the pen and what they write." Ibn al-Anbārī said, in the chapter on the concealment (ikhfāʾ) and clear pronunciation (iẓhār) of the nūn: 'The nūn is a voiced letter (majhūra) possessing nasalization (ghunna); it is concealed together with the letters of the mouth (ḥurūf al-fam) specifically, and pronounced clearly together with the letters of the throat (ḥurūf al-ḥalq) generally. It was concealed with the letters of the mouth because of its nearness to them, and pronounced clearly with the letters of the throat because of its remoteness from them.' Abū ʿAmr used to conceal the nūn before the letters near to it, these being letters of the mouth, as when you say: 'man qāla' (من قال), 'man kāna' (من كان), 'man jāʾa' (من جاء). God Almighty said: 'man jāʾa bi-l-ḥasanati' (من جاء بالحسنة), with concealment [of the nūn]. As for its clear pronunciation before the six letters of the throat: these six are remote from its point of articulation, and belong neither to its class nor to its region, so it was not concealed before them, just as it was not assimilated into them — just as the letters of the tongue are not assimilated into the letters of the throat, on account of their remoteness from them. It was concealed only with the letters of the mouth, just as it was assimilated into the lām and its sister letters, as when you say: 'min ajlika' (من أجلك), 'min hunā' (من هنا), 'man khāfa' (من خاف), 'man ḥarrama zīnata Allāh' (من حرم زينة الله), 'man ʿalayya' (من علي), 'man ʿalayka' (من عليك).' He said: 'Some of the Arabs treat the ghayn (غين) and the khāʾ (خاء) in the manner of the qāf... [entry continues]'