Quranic root
عضل
ʿ · ḍ · l
A root oriented toward severity, constriction, and entanglement in an affair.
Its lexical development extends from compact or muscular flesh and physical constriction to obstructed marriage, difficult or unmanageable affairs, severe disease, crowded or choked spaces, and impeded childbirth.
- Maqāyīs · row 3232
- Mufradāt · row 987
- Lane · entry 3613
- Lane · entry 3614
- Lane · entry 3615
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- 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.
عَضَلَ
ʿaḍala
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 2 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 wrongfully obstruct, withhold, or constrain a woman in a marital matter—especially by preventing her from marrying or remarrying.
Used in Quranic legal contexts for severe obstruction: preventing divorced women from marrying their husbands, and constraining women in a way intended to pressure them regarding what they were given. The varying renderings “hinder” and “constrain” reflect the same obstruction construction.
- Lane · entry 3613
- Mufradāt · row 987
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:232word 7
“hinder them”
Quran 4:19word 12
“you constraint them”
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 23 Classical meanings
عَضَلَ
To strike or hit someone’s muscle.
- Lane · entry 3613
عَضْلٌ
Straitening; prevention, withholding, or debarring.
The general verbal noun and primary semantic branch of constriction or obstruction.
- Lane · entry 3613
عَضِلَ
To be muscular, brawny, or richly supplied with muscle.
Said of a man, especially one large in the muscle of the shank.
- Lane · entry 3613
عَضِلٌ
Muscular, musculous, or brawny.
Applied to a man having many muscles or prominent musculature, especially in the shank.
- Lane · entry 3620
عَضِلَةٌ
Compact in flesh and unseemly or lacking beauty.
An epithet applied to a woman.
- Lane · entry 3620
عَضَّلَ
To make an affair or situation strait, obstructing the way to what is desired.
Used with عَلَيْهِ and related constructions; also said of a thing becoming strait, and figuratively of land or a place becoming choked or crowded with people.
- Lane · entry 3614
عَضَّلَ
To have an offspring or egg become stuck so that birth or laying is difficult.
Said of a woman, ewe, goat, hen, bird, and similar creatures in the reported obstetric or laying construction.
- Lane · entry 3614
عَضَّلَ
To become fatigued from travel, riding, or work.
Said of a she-camel.
- Lane · entry 3614
أَعْضَلَ
To become hard, difficult, or apparently closed to someone; to exhaust or overcome him.
Said of an affair or case, and of a severe disease that defeats or wearies physicians.
- Lane · entry 3615
اِعْضَأَلَّ
To have many branches and become tangled, luxuriant, or dense.
A reported Q.Q. Form IV usage said of a tree; the associated participial form is textually disputed.
- Lane · entry 3617
عِضْلٌ
Very cunning or highly intelligent, with craft and foresight.
Applied to a man.
- Lane · entry 3618
عِضْلٌ
Bad, evil, foul, or unseemly.
Applied to a thing.
- Lane · entry 3618
عَضَلٌ
A large rat, or specifically the male of a rat.
Its plural is reported as عِضْلَانٌ; the vocalization is discussed in the lexical evidence.
- Lane · entry 3619
عَضِلٌ
Muscular, musculous, or brawny.
Applied to a man having many muscles or a large shank muscle.
- Lane · entry 3620
عُضْلَةٌ
A calamity or great misfortune.
Used in the expression عُضْلَةٌ مِنَ العُضَلِ, “a calamity among calamities.”
- Lane · entry 3621
عَضَلَةٌ
A muscle: a mass of firm flesh attached to a tendon or sinew.
Especially a muscle of the shank; the regular plural is عَضَلَاتٌ.
- Lane · entry 3622
عَضَلَةٌ
A reported name for a tree resembling the oleander.
A disputed attribution: one authority reports this sense, while another judges the word to be a form of عَصَلَةٌ instead.
- Lane · entry 3622
عُضَالٌ
Severe, distressing, or difficult to remedy.
Of a disease, one that resists cure and exhausts physicians; of an affair, one hard to undertake or manage; and of an oath, one severe or onerous.
- Lane · entry 3624
عِضْيَلٌّ
Base, ignoble, or mean; narrow or illiberal in disposition.
- Lane · entry 3627
مُعْضِلٌ
A hard, strait, or difficult affair for which no way of carrying it out can be found.
Applied to an affair or case.
- Lane · entry 3628
مُعْضِلَةٌ
A difficult or distressing event, calamity, affair, case, or question.
Especially a matter whose means of resolution or escape are difficult to find.
- Lane · entry 3629
مُعَضَّلٌ
Firm, strong, or compact in build.
A physical description derived from the muscle sense.
- Lane · entry 3630
مُعَضِّلٌ
Having offspring or an egg stuck so that it cannot come forth easily.
An epithet applied to a woman, sheep, goat, hen, or similar creature in the reported childbirth or laying construction.
- Lane · entry 3631
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The reported tree sense of عَضَلَةٌ is retained as disputed evidence because the lexical source attributes it to one authority but another identifies it as a likely form of عَصَلَةٌ instead.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
The tree sense under عَضَلَةٌ is materially lexical but disputed within the source tradition; it is represented only with that qualification.