Grammar term · Sarf · morphology
لَفِيف
lafif
Doubly-weak root (lafif)
Sarf · morphologyRoot soundness (sihha/i'lal)core term625+ in the Qur'an
In one line
The doubly weak root: two weak radicals in one word — وَقَى, طَوَى — 'wrapped' in weakness, hence the name.
Classical definition
اللَّفِيفُ مَا اجْتَمَعَ فِيهِ حَرْفَا عِلَّةٍ، مَقْرُونٌ إِنْ تَجَاوَرَا وَمَفْرُوقٌ إِنِ افْتَرَقَا.
“The lafif is that in which two weak letters come together — 'joined' (maqrun) if adjacent, 'separated' (mafruq) if apart.”
(بتصرف من شذا العرف)
Key words in the Arabic
مَقْرُونjoined — عين ولام weak (طوى)
مَفْرُوقseparated — فاء ولام weak (وقى)
Understand it
Two weak radicals mean double the melting. The mafruq type (weak first and last: وقى، ولي) suffers both the mithal's waw-dropping AND the naqis's tail-dropping — leaving, in the amr, a single heroic letter: قِ 'guard!'. The maqrun type (weak middle and last: طوى، روى) keeps its middle weak letter and behaves mostly like a naqis. These are the shortest words Arabic can build from a three-letter root.
How to spot it
Recognition test
Two of the three radicals from و/ي: lafif. Adjacent (ـوى) = maqrun; wrapped round a sound middle (و...ى) = mafruq — and expect one-letter and two-letter conjugations.
In the Qur'an
قُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا
At-Tahrim 66:6 — “Protect yourselves and your families from a Fire”
قُوٓا۟ from وَقَى — lafif mafruq: the first and last radicals were both weak and both have gone; the qaf alone carries the command.
Forms it takes
مفروقمقرون
Related terms