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Root ז־ו־ן: feeding

Roots Atlas 159 · שֹׁרֶשׁ ז ו ן · the feeding root
ז ו ן
z · v · n
everything to do with feeding and nourishment
7 words · 1 root · 3 verb-voices

One idea runs through this family: to feed, to give what sustains. It is a hollow root (the middle letter is a vowel ו), so the verbs look short, לָזוּן, לְהָזִין, but the meaning is full: nourish, be nourished, sustain. From that core grow מָזוֹן (food) and תְּזוּנָה (nutrition), and a quietly modern twist: in computing, לְהָזִין means to feed in data, and הֲזָנָה is the input, the feed. Even the מִזְנוֹן, the canteen, is just the place where feeding happens. 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
לָזוּןlazun
simple active, the plain action
to nourish, to feed (literary)
Nif'al
לְהִזּוֹןlehizon
passive / middle, it happens to the subject
to be fed, to be nourished
Hif'il
לְהָזִיןlehazin
causative, make someone do it
to nourish, to sustain; to enter / feed in data

Because the root is hollow (middle ו), the binyanim contract: pa'al לָזוּן and hif'il לְהָזִין keep no separate middle vowel slot. Pa'al is now mostly literary; the everyday verb is the hif'il לְהָזִין, which carries both the old sense (to sustain) and the computer-age sense (to feed in input). Pi'el, pu'al and huf'al are not lexicalized here.

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 food itself

מָזוֹן
mazon
food
מָקוֹל

② The act of feeding: and the data feed

הֲזָנָה
hazana
feeding; supply; data input / feed
הַקְטָלָה

③ The abstract: the science of feeding

תְּזוּנָה
tezuna
nutrition
תְּקוּלָה

④ The place: where feeding happens

מִזְנוֹן
miznon
cafeteria, snack bar, canteen, buffet
מִקְלוֹן

Decode it yourself

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