| Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ | |
| Title Orig: | القاموس المحيط، والقابوس الوسيط، الجامع لما ذهب من كلام العرب شماطيط |
| Author: | Firuzabadi |
| Country: | Persia |
| Language: | Arabic |
| Subject: | Arabic language, Lexicography |
| Genre: | Dictionary |
| Published: | 14th century |
| Media Type: | Print (original), Digital (modern) |
Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ (ar| القاموس المحيط|lit=The Encompassing Ocean) is an Arabic dictionary compiled by the lexicographer and linguist, Abū al-Ṭāhir Majīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ya’qūb ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Shīrāzī al-Fīrūzābādī (1329–1414), commonly known as Firuzabadi.[1] [2] [3]
Al-Firuzabadi originally intended to produce the largest dictionary, recording the complete language in sixty volumes. However, he ended up writing only two volumes, which nonetheless included a respectable sixty thousand entries. By being incredibly frugal with his definitions and adding a number of abbreviations to his dictionary, such as m (for ma'ruf, "known") to denote words of common usage that required no additional lexicographical description or j (for jam, "plural"), he was able to fit all these entries into such a small space. Modern Arabic dictionaries still use some of these abbreviations. The Qamus became a very popular dictionary for private use, to the point where the Arabic word for "Qamus" which means "Ocean" has become the current word for "dictionary".[4]
The giant lexicon, Taj al-ʿArus Min Jawahir al-Qamus by Murtada al-Zabidi authored this work as an extension. He completed, revised, and expanded the authoritative Arabic dictionary al-Qamus al-Muhit, in order to compile an Arabic lexicon of such scope and comprehensiveness.[5]
In recent years, efforts have been made to convert Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ into digital formats, such as the Lexical Markup Framework (LMF), to make it more accessible to modern researchers and scholars.[6]