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Root מ־ר־ר: bitterness

Roots Atlas 148 · שֹׁרֶשׁ מ ר ר · the bitter root
מ ר ר
m · r · r
everything to do with bitter and embittering
5 words · 1 root · 2 verb-voices

This geminate root (the ר repeats) holds a single taste that becomes a feeling: bitter. As a bare adjective it is the taste on the tongue; soften it and it is only slightly bitter; lift it into Passover and it is maror, the bitter herb that makes the memory of slavery taste real. As a verb it turns transitive: to embitter, to make a life bitter. Each 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.

Pi'el
לְמָרֵרlemarer
intensive / specialized active
to embitter, to make bitter
Hif'il
לְהָמֵרlehamer
causative, make someone do it
to weep bitterly (archaic); to make life miserable (archaic)

A small geminate family that lives mostly in adjectives. The pi'el לְמָרֵר is the everyday verb "to embitter"; the hif'il לְהָמֵר is archaic and mostly literary. There is no lexicalized pa'al, pu'al, huf'al or hitpa'el here. That is normal for a root whose centre of gravity is a quality, not an action.

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 taste: bitter on the tongue

מַר
mar
bitter
מָרִיר
marir
slightly bitter, bitterish
קָטִיל

② The bitter thing: herb and figure of speech

מָרוֹר
maror
maror, the bitter herb of the Passover seder; bitterness (figurative)
קָטוֹל

Decode it yourself

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