Arabic Dictionaries and Lexicons

Arranged by root or alphabetically

This is the first criterion, and it decides whether the dictionary will serve you. The great classical ma'ajim arrange words by root: to look up istiqbal you must know the root is q-b-l and find it there. It is demanding at first, and that is exactly what teaches the language: you see a word's whole family on one page. Modern dictionaries arrange by the alphabetical order of the full word: faster, but you learn nothing of the derivational system. If you are studying sarf, take a root-based one; for ordinary reading, alphabetical will do.

The great classical dictionaries

• Lisan al-Arab by Ibn Manzur: the reference compilation, fifteen to twenty volumes depending on the edition. You do not read it, you consult it, and it settles cases the others do not treat.
• Al-Qamus al-muhit by al-Fayruzabadi: more concise, long the most widespread dictionary in the Arab world.
• Taj al-'arus by al-Zabidi: the commentary on the previous one, and the fullest of all.
• Al-Sihah by al-Jawhari, and its abridgement Mukhtar al-Sihah by al-Razi: the latter, in one volume, remains the best first root-based dictionary.
• Mu'jam maqayis al-lugha by Ibn Faris: concerned with the original sense of each root; absorbing for understanding why a family of words holds together.

Working dictionaries

Al-Mu'jam al-wasit, published by the Arabic Language Academy of Cairo, is the standard working dictionary: two volumes or one thick one, modern usage included, with brief clear definitions. It is what we recommend by default to the intermediate student moving away from bilingual dictionaries. Al-Misbah al-munir by al-Fayyumi keeps its place for legal vocabulary.

Specialised lexicons

Two titles are indispensable to anyone reading religious texts: Al-Mufradat fi gharib al-Qur'an by al-Raghib al-Isfahani, which treats Quranic vocabulary with an attention to nuance that general dictionaries lack, and Al-Nihaya fi gharib al-hadith by Ibn al-Athir for rare hadith terms. They complement the Tafsir and Hadith sections directly.

What to check before buying

The volume count and the edition, since one title exists as abridgements, as complete printings and sometimes as poor-quality reprints. Paper and ink quality, because a dictionary is leafed through hundreds of times and the cramped type of a bad printing soon becomes unreadable. The binding, necessarily sewn on heavy volumes. We state these three points on every listing, with the publisher.

The other language sciences

A root-based dictionary presupposes being able to extract a word's root: that is exactly what Arabic morphology is for, which is why the two are bought together. For parsing the sentence, see Arabic grammar. Dictionaries earn their keep above all in continuous reading, on Arabic poetry and Arabic literature, where rare vocabulary is everywhere. Overview: Arabic.

Ordering and shipping

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