Root Exploration: ر-ح-م

رَحّال

root: ر-ح-ل / adjective / plural: رُحَّل / definition: nomadic

Every now and then, a wave of embarrassment that I thought had ebbed into nonexistence surges over me once more.

Once upon a time, I received feedback for one of my undergrad Linguistics essays and was mortified to find that the teacher had corrected a phrase I wrote to “monadic predicate”.

And what had I originally written? Nomadic predicate. As if this predicate is roaming around, packing up and re-pitching its tent in the field of syntax.

My teacher at the time showed some mercy and resisted the urge to proclaim my mistake in the next seminar in order to elicit some laughs. (I appreciate you, Anand.)

Speaking of mercy, today we’re exploring the root ر-ح-م—something requested by one of you quite some time ago. And it comes shortly after we looked into an interesting word from this root in Dictionary Finds: رَحَموت.

So, let’s get into it:

ر-ح-م

Form I

الفعل / verb:

رَحِمَ / يَرْحَمُ = to be merciful, have mercy on someone, have compassion for; to spare someone; to relieve someone from (مِن) their suffering through sympathy

(the vowelling of this form I verb indicates that “mercy”, for most, is a transitory state; see Form I Verb Vowelling Patterns)

المصدر / verbal noun:

مَرْحَمة / مَراحِم = pity, compassion, sympathy, mercy

رَحْمة = pity, compassion, mercy; human understanding, kindness, sympathy

collocations:

كانَ تَحْتَ رَحْمَتِهِ = to be at someone’s mercy
جَعَلَهُ تَحْتَ رَحْمَتِهِ = to leave someone/something to someone’s mercy
بِساط الرَّحْمة = pall (i.e. a funeral cloth)

From رحمة, we also get the abstract noun رَحَموت that—interestingly—only appears alongside words with the same suffix; read more here!

noun:

رَحِم أو رِحْم / أَرْحام = womb, uterus; relationship, kinship

(note: this noun is feminine; also, isn’t it interesting that the mother-child relationship (via رَحِم) is rooted in “mercy”?)

collocations:

ذَوو الأَرْحام = relatives on the maternal side (we touched on the word ذوو in Non-Human Nouns, Human Plurals)

رُحْم = mercy, compassion

collocations:

أُمُّ رُحْمٍ = Mecca (this noun and its collocation can be found in Lane’s Lexicon)

emphatic adjectives:

رَحيم / رُحَماء أو رَحوم = merciful, compassionate

(رَحيم is an emphatic form—صيغة مبالغة—and follows the pattern فَعيل)

الرَحْمان = the Merciful (i.e. God)

(with the الـ, the word رَحْمان is often spelt with a dagger alif: الرَّحْمَـٰنُ; this is another emphatic form and follows the pattern فَعْلان; also note that, we mentioned at the start that the form I verb usually has a transitive meaning, but these attributes in reference to God denote permanent states)

اسم المفعول / passive participle:

مَرْحوم = deceased, late

(this participle, as in Wehr’s example, forms constructions like “المرحوم السيّد فلان”, “the late Mr. so-and-so“)

Form II

الفعل / verb:

رَحَّمَ / يُرَحِّمُ على = to ask God to have mercy on someone, to say to someone رَحِمَك الله; to plead for God’s mercy for what has happened

المصدر / verbal noun:

تَرْحيم = a plea for God’s mercy on someone

collocations:

تَرْحيم / تَراحيم لِلْمَوْتى = (in Christianity) intercessory prayer for the dead

Form V

الفعل / verb:

تَرَحَّمَ / يَتَرَحَّمُ = to ask God to have mercy on someone

(this verb shares its meaning with the form II verb; some say it takes on the meanings of form I too)

Form VI

الفعل / verb:

تَرَاحَمَ / يَتَراحَمُ = to show mutual compassion/human understanding; to love and respect one another

(remember: form VI verbs have a general meaning of exchanging)

Form X

الفعل / verb:

اِسْتَرْحَمَ / يَسْتَرْحِمُ = to ask someone to have mercy

(form X verbs carry the general meaning of asking for or seeking something!)

المصدر / verbal noun:

اِسْتِرْحام = plea for mercy

I finish writing this post with super glue residue on my fingers from a repair project gone slightly awry. Well, the best-laid plans—

—and suddenly I’m in my Year 11 classroom with Ms. How’s dramatic readings of Lennie’s lines from Of Mice and Men. And I can’t help but feel like memories are such a blessing… even the ones that still make us blush (*nomadic predicate flashbacks*).

!مع السلامة