Quranic root
أبد
ʾ · b · d
The root combines extended or unlimited duration with withdrawal into wildness, estrangement, or human avoidance.
Its duration branch yields expressions for permanence, eternity, and lastingness; its wildness branch develops into meanings of becoming untamed, avoiding people, deserted places, and figurative strangeness.
- Maqāyīs · row 4
- Mufradāt · row 9
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- Quran senses
- 28
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
أَبَدًا
ʾabadan
- Part of speech
- Adverb · temporal
- Quran occurrences
- 28 occurrences
Selected examples are shown with the sense they illustrate — chosen to teach that sense, not the complete list of this form’s Quran occurrences.
Ever; forever; throughout all future time.
A temporal adverb expressing continuance through the future. In affirmative contexts it commonly means “forever,” while with negation it commonly means “never”; these are contextual uses of the same temporal sense.
- Lane · entry 5930
- Mufradāt · row 9
Selected Quran examples
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 28 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 20 Classical meanings
أَبَدَ؛ آبِدٌ
To remain, stay, abide, or dwell constantly or permanently in a place without leaving it.
The active participle آبِدٌ describes one who remains or dwells continually.
- Lane · entry 5926
- Lane · entry 5939
أَبَدَ
To become wild, take fright, flee, or shun human beings.
This is the verb describing a transition into the behavior of a wild animal.
- Lane · entry 5926
أَبَدَ
To use strange, unfamiliar, or obscure words or phrases in poetry.
The usage is figurative and concerns expressions that are not readily intelligible.
- Lane · entry 5926
أَبِدَ
To become angry with someone.
The construction أَبِدَ عَلَيْهِ means “he was angry with him.”
- Lane · entry 5926
أَبَّدَ
To make or render perpetual.
In an idiomatic negative expression, تأبيدًا can refer to doing a deed destined ever to be remembered or mentioned.
- Lane · entry 5927
أَبَّدَ
To cause a beast to take fright, become wild, or flee.
This is a causative counterpart to the intransitive wildness branch.
- Lane · entry 5927
تَأَبَّدَ
To remain long away from home; to remain long celibate and become little in need or desire of women.
The meanings describe prolonged estrangement or withdrawal from ordinary social and domestic life.
- Lane · entry 5928
تَأَبَّدَ
To become deserted, as a place, and come to be inhabited by wild animals.
The subject is a place of abode or sojourning.
- Lane · entry 5928
أَبَدٌ
Time or duration, especially a long, unlimited, or indivisible span; endless time.
The noun may denote prospective eternity or an extended duration. Its plural forms can designate portions of time or intensify the meaning in particular expressions.
- Lane · entry 5930
أَبَدٌ
Everlasting or enduring without end; by substantivization, the Everlasting, and in one usage the Ancient without beginning.
These are substantive or theological uses of the noun rather than the adverbial Quranic form أَبَدًا.
- Lane · entry 5930
أَبَدٌ
Offspring that is one year old.
A distinct nominal usage recorded in Classical Arabic.
- Lane · entry 5930
أَبِدٌ
Unsocial, unfamiliar, shy, or wild like a wild animal.
The adjective is applied to people and to animals that shun or avoid human company.
- Lane · entry 5931
- Lane · entry 5926
إِبِدٌ
A prolific female that breeds or gives birth abundantly, especially one that bears yearly.
The term is applied to a female slave, she-ass, mare, or she-camel in the cited lexical usage.
- Lane · entry 5932
أَبَدِيَّةٌ
Everlastingness: the quality of unlimited, indivisible, or endless duration.
The noun denotes the abstract quality of perpetual duration.
- Lane · entry 5936
أَبَدِيَّاتٌ
Sayings formulated as expressions of perpetuity or indefinite continuance.
A conventional plural term for sayings expressing that something will continue without end.
- Lane · entry 5936
آبِدٌ؛ أَوَابِدُ
A wild animal that shuns and takes fright at human beings.
The plural أَوَابِدُ is also used in قَيْدُ الأَوَابِدِ for a swift or active horse able to overtake wild animals, and in a proverb for benefits understood as fleeting. The designation is also associated with wild animals’ naturally enduring for a long or seemingly unlimited time.
- Lane · entry 5939
آبِدَةٌ؛ أَوَابِدُ
A deed, calamity, or formidable, strange, or evil event remembered because of its extraordinary or grievous nature.
The noun is used of something people find alarming or worthy of lasting mention.
- Lane · entry 5940
آبِدَةٌ؛ أَوَابِدُ
A strange, unusual, unfamiliar, or obscure word, saying, rhyme, verse, or poem.
The expression is figurative for language remote from ordinary intelligibility or for extraordinary poetic compositions.
- Lane · entry 5940
مُؤَبَّدٌ
Made or rendered perpetual.
It may describe property made an unalienable endowment for pious uses, not to be sold or inherited.
- Lane · entry 5941
مُؤَبَّدَةٌ
A wild, intractable, or unmanageable she-camel.
This feminine participial usage is applied specifically to the cited animal.
- Lane · entry 5941
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic form أَبَدًا is the temporal adverb; the related noun أَبَدٌ and the wildness, animal, and perpetuity branches are listed separately rather than treated as senses of every occurrence.
English “ever,” “never,” and “forever” reflect the surrounding affirmative or negative construction and do not require separate Quranic senses.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
Maqayis records the terse expression تَأَبَّدَ وَجْهُهُ كَلِفَ, but the exact interpretation of كَلِفَ is not sufficiently clear from the supplied context to establish a separate meaning; the independently supported wildness and anger branches are represented.