Lexical Agreement in Form and Meaning in Al-Miṣbāḥ al-Munīr by al-Fayyūmī: A Synchronic Study of Semantic Pairs

This study explores the phenomenon of matched pronunciations—words that align in rhythm and meaning—with the aim of enriching the lexical choices available to writers, poets, and researchers. Such pairings provide stylistic and prosodic flexibility, particularly in poetic composition and rhetorical expression. The research adopts both inductive and analytical methodologies: first by compiling examples of these matched pronunciations from the renowned dictionary Al-Miṣbāḥ al-Munīr fī Gharīb al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr by al-Fayyūmī (d. 770 AH), and then by conducting a detailed analysis of their morphological and semantic characteristics. The results show that matched pronunciations appear across nouns, verbs, and particles, with verbs being the most frequent, followed by nouns—particularly derivatives, singulars, and plurals. While Al-Miṣbāḥ al-Munīr does not exhaustively cover all such occurrences, it offers a notably rich selection despite its concise format. The research situates this phenomenon within the broader linguistic concept of synonymy, where terms like “casal” and “shahd,” or “nama” and “hajaca” illustrate semantic convergence. However, the study uniquely focuses on cases where meanings align while lexical origins diverge. The selected sample—140 entries—proves sufficient to clarify the scope and implications of the phenomenon, offering a combined morphological and semantic lens on a classical lexicographical tradition. Explicit references to this phenomenon appear in Lisān al-ʿArab and Tāj al-ʿArūs, yet their combined entries are fewer than those in Al-Miṣbāḥ al-Munīr alone—only 3 and 80 respectively—underscoring the latter’s exceptional lexicographical contribution.