Quranic root
ضلل
ḍ · l · l
The root centers on losing, missing, or departing from the proper course, whether literally, intellectually, morally, or in the outcome of an action.
From loss of a way or object, the meanings extend to error and straying, disappearance or concealment, perishing and annulment, and causatively to leading another into error.
- Maqāyīs · row 2944
- Mufradāt · row 877
- 8
- Quran-attested forms
- 14
- Quran senses
- 191
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
ضَلَّ
ḍalla
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 53 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.
To go astray, deviate from what is right, or miss the proper way.
Used both intransitively and with a way or course understood; the Qur'an applies it to error, deviation, and loss of right direction.
- Lane · entry 17888
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 34:50word 3
“I err”
To become lost, perish, or come to nothing.
Includes the loss or annulment of an undertaking and, in the Qur'anic expression concerning the body, becoming dust and bones.
- Lane · entry 17888
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 18:104word 2
“is lost”
To be absent from awareness or memory; to forget or be unmindful.
In Qur'anic constructions this includes a lapse of memory and the statement that nothing escapes or is forgotten by the Lord.
- Lane · entry 17888
- Lane · entry 17905
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 20:52word 8
“errs”
أَضَلَّ
ʾaḍalla
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- Quran occurrences
- 64 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.
To cause someone to go astray, mislead, or turn away from right guidance.
The causative may describe human or satanic misleading and divine letting or causing someone to remain in straying; the latter is presented in the Qur'anic discussion as connected with the person's prior course or disposition.
- Lane · entry 17890
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:113word 10
“mislead you”
To cause something to perish, be lost, or become without effect.
Used of works, plots, and other outcomes that are rendered futile, unrecognized, or unrecompensed, as well as of causing a person or thing to be lost.
- Lane · entry 17890
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 47:1word 7
“He will cause to be lost”
أَضَلُّ
ʾaḍallu
- Part of speech
- Comparative adjective
- Quran occurrences
- 9 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.
More astray, farther from the right course, or most astray.
A comparative or superlative evaluation of distance from right guidance; the degree of straying varies with the comparison and context.
- Lane · entry 17901
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 5:60word 24
“and farthest astray”
Quran 25:42word 16
“(is) more astray”
ضَالّ
ḍāll
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- Quran occurrences
- 14 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.
One who is straying, deviating from right guidance, or lost.
The active participle can function adjectivally or substantivally and may describe a continuing state or its result.
- Lane · entry 17905
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 1:7word 9
“(of) those who go astray”
Not yet guided or unaware of the guidance sought; in some contexts, forgetful or in a state of inadvertence.
This Qur'anic use need not imply culpable doctrinal error; it includes a temporary or situational lack of awareness and the state described in the account of Moses.
- Lane · entry 17905
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 93:7word 2
“lost”
ضَلَال
ḍalāl
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 38 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.
Straying, error, or deviation from the right course.
May concern intellectual beliefs, religious practice, moral judgment, or any departure from the approved way; it may be intentional or inadvertent and slight or extreme.
- Lane · entry 17901
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 14:18word 21
“(is) the straying”
Perdition, loss, or the annulled state of a thing or action.
Used when something is lost, perishes, or fails to produce its intended result; this includes the Qur'anic description of a state of perdition.
- Lane · entry 17901
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 54:24word 9
“error”
ضَلَالَة
ḍalālah
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 9 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 state or instance of straying, error, or deviation from the right course.
The noun is semantically equivalent to ضَلَال in the Qur'anic usage and can denote the condition or occurrence of being astray.
- Mufradāt · row 877
- Lane · entry 17901
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:16word 4
“[the] astraying”
Quran 16:36word 20
“the straying”
مُضِلّ
muḍill
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
One who causes another to go astray; a misleader.
The Qur'anic form is substantivized for an agent who misleads or leaves another without right guidance.
- Lane · entry 17916
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 28:15word 37
“one who misleads”
Quran 18:51word 12
“the misleaders”
تَضْلِيل
taḍlīl
- Part of speech
- Verbal 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.
Leading astray, misleading, or causing deviation from the right way.
Names the action or process corresponding to Form II ضَلَّلَ.
- Lane · entry 17889
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 105:2word 5
“astray”
Rendering an undertaking futile, lost, or annulled.
In the Qur'anic construction concerning the plot of the أصحاب الفيل, the term denotes an outcome of destruction, futility, or annulment rather than merely verbal misleading.
- Lane · entry 17890
- Mufradāt · row 877
Selected Quran examples
Quran 105:2word 5
“astray”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 1:7ٱلضَّآلِّينَ(of) those who go astray
- 2:16ٱلضَّلَـٰلَةَ[the] astraying
- 2:26يُضِلُّHe lets go astray
- 2:26يُضِلُّHe lets go astray
- 2:108ضَلَّhe went astray (from)
Broader Classical Arabic meanings
Recorded for this root in the Classical lexicons beyond its Quran usage. These are secondary to the Quran senses above.
Show 34 Classical meanings
ضَلَّ
To miss or lose the location of a stationary thing, such as a road, mosque, house, or animal, without finding the way to it.
A transitive use applied to something whose place is not found; distinct from merely deviating oneself from a path.
- Lane · entry 17888
ضَلَّ
To become confused or perplexed and unable to see the right course.
A conventional extension describing disorientation rather than the ordinary fact of going astray.
- Lane · entry 17888
ضَلَّ
To become unperceived, hidden, concealed, or absent from view.
Includes a road or object becoming hidden from someone; the memory-related Qur'anic uses are listed under the Quranic form sense for forgetting.
- Lane · entry 17888
ضَلَّنِي
To go away from someone so that he cannot reach or find the person who departed.
A special transitive construction meaning that a person has gone beyond the speaker's ability to compass him.
- Lane · entry 17888
ضَلَّلَ
To attribute or impute error or deviation to someone or to an undertaking.
This is a Form II use distinct from actively leading someone into error.
- Lane · entry 17889
ضَلَّلَ
To send cattle out to pasture or set them free to graze where they please.
A specialized pastoral construction.
- Lane · entry 17889
أَضَلَّ
To bury and thereby hide or conceal a person or thing.
A tropical use, including the expression for a dead person being buried.
- Lane · entry 17890
أَضَلَّ
To find someone to be erring, astray, or not rightly directed.
A lexical pattern comparable to other Form IV verbs meaning to find someone in a particular state.
- Lane · entry 17890
أَضَلَّنِي
To be or become beyond someone's power or ability to compass.
A tropical use describing something that has passed beyond the speaker's reach.
- Lane · entry 17890
تَضَلَّلَ
To go away or disappear.
Attested in the construction describing water disappearing from beneath a stone.
- Lane · entry 17891
تَضَالَّ
To feign being astray, confused, or unable to find the right way.
The form indicates pretended rather than genuine straying.
- Lane · entry 17892
اِسْتَضَلَّ
To have one's straying demand or produce still more straying.
A conventional Form X expression describing error as the occasion of further error.
- Lane · entry 17893
ضُلّ
A state of being lost, perishing, coming to nothing, or passing away.
A substantival use derived from ضَلَّ and ضَاعَ or هَلَكَ.
- Lane · entry 17895
ضُلّ بْنُ ضُلّ
An unknown person, one in whom there is no good, or one who persists in error.
A fixed descriptive expression, also used of a person regarded as worthless or persistently mistaken.
- Lane · entry 17895
- Lane · entry 17896
ضُلّ بِتَضْلَال
A vain, futile, or misleading thing.
A substantival and idiomatic use in which the thing comes to nothing or misleads without result.
- Lane · entry 17895
ضَلَّة
Confusion, perplexity, or error; also going away without knowing where one has gone.
The noun can describe an action done in error or a departure whose destination is unknown.
- Lane · entry 17897
ضَلَّة
Speech about a person in his absence or behind his back, whether favorable or unfavorable.
A specialized conventional use of the noun.
- Lane · entry 17897
ضُلَّة
Skill in guiding or directing aright during a journey.
A specialized noun with a meaning opposite in practical effect to ordinary straying.
- Lane · entry 17898
ضِلَّة
Unlawful or non-legitimate birth.
Used in the expression for someone being another's son unlawfully begotten or not trueborn.
- Lane · entry 17899
ضِلَّة
Blood that goes unavenged or without retaliation.
A fixed expression describing a killing for which no retaliation is exacted.
- Lane · entry 17899
ضِلَّة
A person who has no good in him, including a cunning or harmful person; in one expression, a follower of women.
Conventional idiomatic descriptions rather than the ordinary adjective meaning astray.
- Lane · entry 17899
ضَلَّة
A person in whom there is no good.
A specialized lexical use reported on the authority of Meyd; it is distinct from the ordinary noun senses of confusion, error, or speech in a person's absence.
- Lane · entry 17897
ضَلَل
Water running beneath a rock or among trees, hidden from the sun.
A specialized nominal description of concealed or sheltered running water.
- Lane · entry 17900
ضَلَال
Absence or a state of concealment.
A broader Classical nominal sense distinct from the Qur'anic noun's principal sense of error or straying.
- Lane · entry 17901
ضِلِّيل
A person who errs or goes astray much or persistently, especially one not directed toward good.
An intensive descriptive form, also applied to one who does not desist from error.
- Lane · entry 17904
ضَالَّة
A stray or lost animal, or any lost thing whose owner or location is unknown.
Applied to male or female animals, to singulars and plurals, and extended to anything lost and sought.
- Lane · entry 17906
ضَلَضِل
Rugged, hard, stony land or ground.
A reduplicated nominal describing difficult terrain.
- Lane · entry 17907
ضَلَضِل
A stone, or stones, small enough to be lifted and carried, especially smooth stones in a valley.
A specialized terrain term for movable valley stones.
- Lane · entry 17907
ضُلَضِل
A skillful guide of the way.
A specialized nominal use distinct from the rugged-land sense.
- Lane · entry 17908
ضُلْضُلَة
The remains of water.
Used in the plural expression for water left behind.
- Lane · entry 17910
وَادِي تُضُلِّلَ
In the fixed expression, to fall into futility, disappointment, or destruction.
The idiom may describe entering what is vain and unreal or perishing.
- Lane · entry 17915
مُضِلّ
A road, land, trial, discord, or mirage that causes one to go astray.
A non-personal agentive adjective; the Qur'anic substantivized personal-agent use is listed separately.
- Lane · entry 17916
مَضَلَّة
A cause of straying, or a place such as a land or desert in which one loses the way.
Used both as a substantive for a cause of error and as an epithet for misleading terrain; the vocalized variant مَضِلَّة is cross-referenced to the same branch.
- Lane · entry 17917
مُتَضَالّ
One who pretends to be astray or confused.
The active participle of Form VI, contrasted with someone who is genuinely able to be guided.
- Lane · entry 17920
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The QAC nominal أَضَلُّ is presented as a comparative adjective and is not merged with the Form IV verb أَضَلَّ.
The active participle ضَالّ has a Qur'anic use for a state of not yet being guided or of inadvertence; this should not automatically be equated with culpable doctrinal error.
Lane's historical Quran citation notation was used only as lexical evidence; modern verse locations in examples are taken from independently supplied QAC occurrences.