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Root ק־ו־ם: rising & standing

Roots Atlas 12 · שֹׁרֶשׁ ק ו ם · the rising / standing root
ק ו ם
k · w · m
everything to do with rising, standing, and being established
9 words · 1 root · 3 verb-voices

One root, one gesture: coming upright. A body rises from the ground, a building rises from a foundation, a people rises in revolt, a whole universe stands into being. This is a hollow root (ע״ו): its middle letter ו is not a hard consonant but a vowel-carrier, so it surfaces as a long u/o in some forms (לָקוּם, מָקוֹם) and quietly drops in others (הֵקִים, הֲקָמָה). Watch the ק and the ם stay put while the middle breathes. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.

The verb across the binyanim (voices)

The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.

Pa'al
לָקוּםlakum
simple active, the plain action
to get up, to rise, to stand; to come into being
Hif'il
לְהָקִיםlehakim
causative, make someone do it
to set up, to build, to found, to establish (cause to stand)
Hitpa'el
לְהִתְקוֹמֵםlehitkomem
reflexive / reciprocal, to / on oneself
to rise up, to rebel, to revolt

Three live binyanim here, each a different way of standing. PA'AL is the intransitive rise (you stand up yourself). HIF'IL is causative (you make something else stand: you found it). HITPA'EL turns the rising back on a power structure: you stand against, you revolt. The hollow ו shows its colours: it sounds as u in לָקוּם, as o in לְהִתְקוֹמֵם, and vanishes in the HIF'IL stem הֵקִים. Pi'el, pu'al, nif'al and huf'al are not lexicalized for this root.

Words born from the root

Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.

① The act of founding: making things stand

הֲקָמָה
hakama
establishment, founding, setting up
הַקְטָלָה
הִתְקוֹמְמוּת
hitkomemut
uprising, rebellion, revolt
הִתְקַטְּלוּת

② Where it stands: place & height

מָקוֹם
makom
place, spot, room, seat
מָקוֹל
קוֹמָה
koma
floor, storey, tier; stature, height

③ What stands into being: the world

יְקוּם
yekum
universe, the whole created world

④ Belonging to a place: the adjective

מְקוֹמִי
mekomi
local, of the place
קְטוֹלִי

Decode it yourself

Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.