Quranic root
شغل
sh · gh · l
The root centers on occupying or preoccupying, in contrast to emptiness or leisure.
The basic idea of occupying another or being occupied extends to diversion of attention, business and preoccupation, states of engagement, resource-use, and specialized senses involving substances taking effect.
- Maqāyīs · row 2658
- Mufradāt · row 774
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 2
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
شَغَلَ
shaghala
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 1 occurrence
Selected examples are shown with the sense they illustrate — chosen to teach that sense, not the complete list of this form’s Quran occurrences.
To busy, occupy, or engage someone, diverting them from something.
A transitive Form I verb; the diversion-from nuance is especially expressed with عَنْ. The Quranic occurrence is an active form referring to being kept busy.
- Lane · entry 38768
Selected Quran examples
Quran 48:11word 6
“Kept us busy”
شُغُلٌ
shughulun
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 1 occurrence
Selected examples are shown with the sense they illustrate — chosen to teach that sense, not the complete list of this form’s Quran occurrences.
An engrossing preoccupation or circumstance that absorbs and distracts a person’s attention.
In the Quranic expression شُغُلٍ فَاكِهُونَ, it denotes an engrossing state or occupation; the sense may involve being made forgetful or unmindful of other matters.
- Mufradāt · row 774
- Lane · entry 38774
Selected Quran examples
Quran 36:55word 6
“will be occupied”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 2 occurrencesBroader Classical Arabic meanings
Recorded for this root in the Classical lexicons beyond its Quran usage. These are secondary to the Quran senses above.
Show 10 Classical meanings
شُغْلٌ
Business, occupation, or employment; the opposite of leisure.
The related vowel forms شُغُلٌ and شَغَلٌ are also recorded. The preoccupying or distracting extension overlaps the Quranic nominal sense.
- Lane · entry 38774
شَغَلَ
To occupy a place, resource, or supply so that it is kept from another; hence, to have enough for oneself.
Attested in expressions concerning pasture or water being occupied and thereby unavailable to another.
- Lane · entry 38768
شَغِلٌ
Busy, occupied, or employed; engaged with something so as to be diverted from another matter.
Related forms include مَشْغُولٌ, مُشْتَغِلٌ, and مُشْتَغَلٌ. شَغَّالٌ expresses intensive or habitual busyness, أَشْغَلُ is comparative or superlative, and مَا أَشْغَلَهُ is an anomalous exclamative meaning how greatly someone is busied.
- Lane · entry 38768
- Lane · entry 38770
- Lane · entry 38776
- Lane · entry 38780
- Lane · entry 38782
تَشَاغَلَ
To busy oneself with something, or to occupy one another.
May be construed with عَنْ for turning oneself away from or keeping oneself occupied away from someone or something.
- Lane · entry 38771
اِشْتَغَلَ
To spread through or pervade, of poison; to enter and take effect, of medicine.
A specialized construction describing a substance penetrating or producing its effect in a person or thing.
- Lane · entry 38772
شَاغِلٌ
One or something that busies, occupies, or diverts another.
Applied to a person or to an affair; its plural may refer to busifying or distracting affairs.
- Lane · entry 38781
شَغْلَةٌ
Reaped grain or wheat collected together at the place where it is threshed.
A specialized agricultural noun, also associated with بَيْدَرٌ and كُدْسٌ.
- Lane · entry 38778
أُشْغُولَةٌ
A thing with which one is busied or occupied.
An أُفْعُولَةٌ formation from the occupation sense; it can also function as a synonym of شُغْلٌ.
- Lane · entry 38783
مَشْغَلَةٌ
A thing that causes someone to be busied or occupied.
The plural is مَشَاغِلُ.
- Lane · entry 38784
مَشْغُولٌ
Occupied, engaged, or in use in specialized applications.
A person may be occupied with an unprofitable pursuit; a young woman may be married; property may be devoted to commerce; and a house may be inhabited.
- Lane · entry 38785
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The verb is displayed as the normalized Form I citation form شَغَلَ; the Quranic token شَغَلَتْ is its feminine singular perfect form.
Some derived forms in the Classical evidence are marked dialectal, rare, anomalous, or disputed; they are retained only where their lexical construction is independently meaningful.