Three consonants carry one idea: letting go, setting free of a tie. Freed of a duty you are exempt; freed from a job you are fired; the soul freed from the body is the gentle word for passing away. Each binyan picks a different kind of release: the pa'al exempts from a liability, the pi'el dismisses a worker, the hif'il sends away or lets go. The patent (petent) and the haftarah read after the Torah portion belong to the same family of "taking leave". Pour the root into the hitpa'el and you release yourself, you resign. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
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.
Three active binyanim split the meaning of release: pa'al = free of a duty, pi'el = put an employee out (intensive, done to someone), hif'il = let go / send off. The reflexive of the pi'el gives the noun הִתְפַּטְּרוּת below: release applied to yourself = resignation. Pu'al and huf'al are not lexicalized as everyday verbs for this 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.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.