Quranic root
ضجع
ḍ · j · ʿ
The root centers on lying with one's side close to the ground, with extensions to sleeping, resting, inclination, remaining low or stationary, and related figurative states.
The basic posture of lying on one's side develops into meanings of sleep and a place of rest, physical or directional inclination, failure to act or weakness, and various specialized descriptions of things that lean, remain low, or stay apart.
- Maqāyīs · row 2896
- Lane · entry 17495
- Lane · entry 17514
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- Quran senses
- 3
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
مَضْجَعٌ
maḍjaʿun
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 3 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.
A place or surface where one lies or sleeps; a bed, resting place, or place for spending the night.
The Quranic form is the plural مَضَاجِعُ. It can denote beds or other things spread on the ground for lying, and places of sleep or overnight rest. The contextual rendering “places of death” in 3:154 does not establish a separate lexical sense here.
- Lane · entry 17517
Selected Quran examples
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 3 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 51 Classical meanings
ضَجَعَ
To lie on one's side; by extension, to lie or sleep.
The verb may describe lying on the side specifically or lying and sleeping more generally.
- Lane · entry 17495
ضَجَعَ
To decline from a path or way.
A reported usage describing deviation from the way.
- Lane · entry 17495
ضَجَعَ
To incline toward setting; of a star or the sun, to approach setting.
Used of celestial bodies and their movement toward the horizon.
- Lane · entry 17495
ضَجَعَ، ضَجَّعَ
To be weak or fall short in an affair, or to be weak in judgment or opinion.
The construction concerns inadequate performance or weakness in an affair, judgment, or opinion.
- Lane · entry 17495
- Lane · entry 17496
ضَجَّعَ
To waver in intention and fail to make an intention take effect.
A figurative Form II usage concerning vacillation in resolve.
- Lane · entry 17496
ضَاجَعَ
To lie or sleep with another person.
The conventional construction describes lying together, including on one bed or in one garment.
- Lane · entry 17497
ضَاجَعَهُ الهَمُّ
For anxiety or another burden to cling closely to someone.
A figurative construction in which the subject is an affliction or emotional burden.
- Lane · entry 17497
أَضْجَعَ
To lay someone on the side, or to lower or depress something.
The causative may concern placing a person on the side, lowering an object, or making a thrust descend.
- Lane · entry 17498
أَضْجَعَ
To empty a sack that had been full.
A specialized reported usage concerning a full sack or bag.
- Lane · entry 17498
الإِضْجَاعُ
Vowel lowering or inclination in pronunciation.
A technical grammatical or phonetic usage, compared with imālah and khafḍ.
- Lane · entry 17498
تَضَجَّعَ
To hold back from an affair and not undertake it.
Used with an affair in a figurative Form V construction.
- Lane · entry 17499
تَضَجَّعَ
Of clouds, to continue raining over a place.
A specialized meteorological usage.
- Lane · entry 17499
تَضَاجَعَ
To pretend to be unaware or heedless of an affair.
Used with عن and an affair that the subject feigns not to notice.
- Lane · entry 17500
اِضْطَجَعَ
In prostration, to keep the body from rising fully from the ground and to press the breast toward it.
A specialized description of bodily posture in prostration.
- Lane · entry 17502
ضَجْعٌ
A plant or plant substance used in washing clothes, identified with glasswort or a similar plant.
A specialized regional botanical meaning; the sources give differing descriptions of the plant and its preparation.
- Lane · entry 17503
ضِجْعٌ
Inclination toward someone or something.
Used in a construction expressing that one person's inclination is toward another.
- Lane · entry 17504
ضَجْعَةٌ
A single act of lying or sleeping; a sleep.
The noun denotes one occurrence of the underlying action.
- Lane · entry 17505
ضَجْعَةٌ
Weakness in judgment.
Used figuratively of weakness in a person's reasoning or opinion.
- Lane · entry 17505
ضَجْعَةٌ
Ease, repose, or freedom from trouble and fatigue.
A figurative noun meaning relief or comfortable rest.
- Lane · entry 17505
ضُجْعَةٌ
A person whom people often lay or throw upon the side.
An epithet describing a person frequently subjected to being laid down or thrown down.
- Lane · entry 17506
ضُجْعَةٌ
Apparently, one who lays others on their side or prostrates them.
The source presents this as an inferred related usage rather than an unqualified definition.
- Lane · entry 17506
ضُجْعَةٌ
A disease that confines a person to bed.
A figurative designation based on the disease's making a person lie down.
- Lane · entry 17506
ضِجْعَةٌ
A mode or manner of lying on the side or sleeping.
The noun describes the posture or manner rather than a single occurrence.
- Lane · entry 17507
ضِجْعَةٌ
Sluggishness, laziness, or indolence.
A figurative usage derived from remaining lying down or inactive.
- Lane · entry 17507
ضِجْعَةٌ
A bed.
A substantivized expression for a thing used for lying or sleeping.
- Lane · entry 17507
ضَجَعَةٌ
The act of lying on the side or otherwise, or of sleeping.
A generic noun for the action, equivalent in sense to اِضْطِجَاعٌ in the cited explanation.
- Lane · entry 17508
ضُجَعَةٌ
A person who lies or sleeps much; by extension, a sluggish, indolent, housebound, inert, or poverty-contented person.
The extended descriptions include someone who seldom goes out or rises to act.
- Lane · entry 17509
ضَجُوعٌ
A water-skin whose weight makes the person drawing water lean.
A specialized description of a heavy water-skin.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجُوعٌ
A wide leather bucket.
A specialized nominal usage, given alongside the water-skin meaning.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجُوعٌ
A cloud slow-moving because of the abundance of its water.
A figurative meteorological usage.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجُوعٌ
A well hollowed out in its sides because the water has eaten into its interior.
A specialized description of the shape of a well.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجُوعٌ
A she-camel that grazes to one side or apart from the others.
Used of a she-camel's grazing behavior.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجُوعٌ
A wife who is contrary or oppositional toward her husband.
A specialized characterization of marital behavior.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجُوعٌ
A man weak in judgment.
A figurative personal description concerning unsound reasoning.
- Lane · entry 17512
ضَجِيعٌ
A bedfellow or one who lies or sleeps with another.
The noun may be used of either a male or female bedfellow and can describe lying together in one garment.
- Lane · entry 17513
ضَاجِعٌ
Lying on the side or otherwise, or sleeping.
An active participial adjective describing the person or thing lying or sleeping.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ
Stupid, foolish, or unsound in intellect.
A figurative description connected in the source with impotence and remaining fixed in place.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ
A full leather bucket that leans while being raised from a well because of its weight.
A specialized description of a heavy, full bucket.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ، ضَوَاجِعُ
A star inclining toward setting; by extension, the fixed stars.
The plural ضَوَاجِعُ is also used in the reported astronomical expression.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ
Inclining toward someone or something.
A figurative construction expressing personal inclination.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ
A place where a valley bends.
A geographic noun; the plural is ضَوَاجِعُ.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ
Worthless or lacking goodness when applied to a beast.
A specialized evaluative usage of the adjective for an animal.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ
Numerous sheep or goats.
Used in the expression غَنَمٌ ضَاجِعَةٌ.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعٌ، ضَوَاجِعُ
Of camels, remaining among the plants called حَمْض rather than moving on.
A specialized description of camels that graze apart or remain among a particular kind of plant.
- Lane · entry 17514
ضَاجِعَةٌ
The place where water flows into a valley.
A geographic noun for the valley's receiving or entry place; its plural is ضَوَاجِعُ.
- Lane · entry 17515
ضَوَاجِعُ
Hills or uplands; in one report, the name of a particular place.
The evidence preserves both the common-noun interpretation and the alternative place-name analysis.
- Lane · entry 17515
أَضْجَعُ
Having central incisors that incline.
An adjectival physical description applied to a person; the plural is ضُجْعٌ.
- Lane · entry 17516
أَضْجَعُ
Contrary or oppositional toward one's wife.
A specialized description of a husband's conduct toward his wife.
- Lane · entry 17516
مَضَاجِعُ
Wives or women, by a figurative extension from beds or sleeping places.
A metaphorical plural usage in expressions about a man's wives or women; this is broader Classical usage, not an additional Quranic sense of the supplied form.
- Lane · entry 17517
مَضَاجِعُ
Places where rain falls.
A figurative expression for meadows or other places receiving rain.
- Lane · entry 17517
مُضْطَجَعٌ
To pray lying on one's right side, facing the qiblah.
A specialized ritual-posture expression reported with صَلَّى مُضْطَجِعًا.
- Lane · entry 17521
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic form is attested only as the plural مَضَاجِعُ; the public headword is normalized to the singular citation form مَضْجَعٌ.
The contextual rendering “places of death” at 3:154 is retained as an example gloss, but the supplied lexical evidence supports the broader place-of-lying or sleeping sense rather than a separate death meaning.
Several Classical entries contain attributed, tentative, technical, or figurative usages; these have been retained with their stated qualifications rather than treated as ordinary Quranic meanings.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
The report in lane-unit:DjE:17515:g1:sub2 permits either the common-noun meaning “hills” or a proper place-name; both possibilities are preserved under cm:DjE:46.
The agentive interpretation in lane-unit:DjE:17506:g1:sub2 is explicitly presented as an inference and is therefore marked as apparent in cm:DjE:21.