Maqāyīs al-Lugha
مقاييس اللغة
Ibn Fāris · d. 395 AH / 1004–5 CE (other dates reported) · Root-meaning dictionary
Many dictionaries record what words mean. Ibn Fāris set out to show what holds a root's words together. A typical entry of the Maqāyīs al-Lugha opens with a verdict, that these letters form one aṣl (a root sense), or two, or three, and then brings the words, verses and older authorities that support it. Read it as it was written: as an argument by a tenth-century philologist, persuasive in places, strained in others, and frank about the words that refuse to fit.
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