Grammar term · Sarf · morphology
جَامِد (لَا فِعْل لَهُ)
jamid (la fi'l lahu)
Primitive noun with no verbal root
Sarf · morphologyDerivation statusadvanced term86+ in the Qur'an
In one line
The doubly frozen noun: no verb even shares its letters — دِرْهَم has no 'to dirham' — so nothing can be derived from it.
Classical definition
مِنَ الأَسْمَاءِ الجَامِدَةِ مَا لَا فِعْلَ لَهُ مِنْ لَفْظِهِ فَلَا يُشْتَقُّ مِنْهُ.
“Among the frozen nouns are those that have no verb from their own letters, so nothing is derived from them.”
(بتصرف من شذا العرف)
Key words in the Arabic
لَا فِعْلَ لَهُit has no verb
مِنْ لَفْظِهِfrom its own letters
Understand it
Most jamid nouns at least sit near a verbal root; this subset is verb-less altogether — proper names of things (دِرْهَم، إِبْرِيق), many loanwords, primitive kind-nouns. For the student the label is a permission slip: stop hunting for a root pattern here, the word is simply itself. If Arabic later needs a verb from such a noun it must coin one afresh, which is the exception that proves the freeze.
How to spot it
Recognition test
Try to conjugate it: if no madi/mudari' exists from the same letters in the dictionary, it is jamid la fi'l lahu — parse it as a plain noun and move on.
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