Quranic root
عبد
ʿ · b · d
The root has two attested semantic axes: yieldingness, humility, and servitude on the one hand, and strength or hardness on the other.
The first axis develops from the status of a slave or subject into worship, humble obedience, devotion, enslavement, and the making of things tractable or well-trodden. The second axis yields strength, solidity, anger, and disdain-related usages.
- Maqāyīs · row 3116
- Mufradāt · row 936
- 5
- Quran-attested forms
- 9
- Quran senses
- 275
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
عَبَدَ
ʿabada
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 122 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 worship, serve, or adore a deity, especially through humble and submissive obedience.
Used in the Quran with God, false gods, or the Devil as object. The active, imperative, imperfect, perfect, and passive forms are grammatical variants of this lexical use; the passive means “be worshipped.”
- Lane · entry 1828
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 20:14word 8
“so worship Me”
Quran 43:45word 13
“to be worshipped”
In an alternate Quranic reading, to become an object of worship.
This is an explicitly reported alternative interpretation of a Quranic expression; the cited historical Lane reference is not converted here into a modern verse location.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبَّدَ
ʿabbada
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form II
- Form
- II
- 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 enslave someone or make someone as a slave; to bring someone under servile submission.
The Quranic occurrence refers to enslaving or subjugating people. The causative force includes reducing someone to the condition or work of a slave.
- Lane · entry 1829
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 26:22word 6
“you have enslaved”
عَابِد
ʿābid
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- Quran occurrences
- 12 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 worshipper, devotee, or one who serves a deity with devotion.
The Quran includes masculine and feminine forms. The object may be God or, by secondary application, an idol or other deity; the feminine form عَابِدَات is included here.
- Lane · entry 1858
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:112word 2
“those who worship”
Quran 66:5word 14
“who worship”
Quran 43:81word 8
“(of) the worshippers”
One who rejects, disdains, or angrily repudiates a claim.
This is a reported interpretation of the Quranic expression in which العابدين is variously explained as worshippers, angry rejecters, scorners, or deniers. The interpretive alternatives are not treated as a settled restriction on the ordinary participle.
- Lane · entry 1838
عَبْد
ʿabd
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 131 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 slave or bondman; a person in a legally enslaved condition.
The Quranic legal usage includes the contrast between a slave and a free person. In the evidence, عَبِيد is associated with owned slaves, while عِبَاد commonly denotes servants or worshippers; عَبِيد with a divine genitive can nevertheless be broader.
- Lane · entry 1835
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:178word 11
“and the slave”
A created being under God's lordship, coming to Him as a servant.
This sense concerns the relation established by creation and divine ownership, not necessarily a person's voluntary devotional practice.
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 19:93word 10
“(as) a slave”
A servant or worshipper devoted to God through service, obedience, and worship.
The Quran applies this to prophets, righteous servants, and God's devoted people. عِبَاد commonly functions as its plural in this devotional sense, while the broader divine designation may also include all created beings.
- Lane · entry 1835
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 17:1word 4
“His servant”
Quran 18:65word 4
“Our servants”
عِبَادَة
ʿibādah
- 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.
Worship, devotional service, or humble obedience rendered to God or a deity.
The noun denotes the practice or act of worship, including obedience with humility and submissiveness. In the Quran-focused distinction, it is associated with doing what God approves rather than merely recognizing or approving what He does.
- Lane · entry 1851
- Mufradāt · row 936
Selected Quran examples
Quran 18:110word 22
“in (the) worship”
Quran 19:82word 3
“their worship (of them)”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 1:5نَعْبُدُwe worship
- 2:21ٱعْبُدُوا۟worship
- 2:23عَبْدِنَاOur slave
- 2:83تَعْبُدُونَyou will worship
- 2:90عِبَادِهِۦ ۖHis servants
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 52 Classical meanings
عَبَدَ
To be excited against someone in order to annoy, molest, harm, or hurt him.
A transitive construction with بِهِ is reported.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبَدَ
To withhold or keep someone away from another.
Attested in the expression مَا عَبَدَكَ عَنِّي, “what has withheld you from me?”
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبُدَ
To become a slave or enter a state of slavery.
This stative verb is distinct from the Form I verb meaning worship.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ
To become angry or remain angry with someone.
The verb may be construed with عَلَى or, in poetic usage, transitively without a preposition.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ
To disdain, scorn, or regard something as beneath one.
The associated noun عَبَدَة can denote intense disdain or scorn.
- Lane · entry 1828
- Lane · entry 1840
عَبِدَ
To deny, disavow, or reject an assertion.
This is a reported lexical extension distinct from ordinary worship.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ
To repent and blame oneself for negligence or failure to do what was required.
Attested as a distinct emotional and moral use.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ
To mourn, grieve, or be sorrowful.
A Classical Arabic emotional usage.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ
To be covetous or inordinately desirous.
The evidence treats this as a distinct use from anger and worship.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ بِهِ
To cling or adhere inseparably to something or someone.
The prepositional construction بِهِ is required in the cited use.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبِدَ
Of a camel, to become affected with mange or scab.
The reports include severe or incurable mange and the resulting loss of hair.
- Lane · entry 1828
عَبَّدَ
To render a camel submissive, tractable, or manageable.
A causative Form II use applied to a camel.
- Lane · entry 1829
عَبَّدَ
To make a road or path even and easy to travel.
A causative use applied to a route or track.
- Lane · entry 1829
عَبَّدَ
To depart in fright, run away at random, or hasten repeatedly.
This is an intransitive Form II usage.
- Lane · entry 1829
مَا عَبَّدَ أَنْ
Not to delay or be slow to do something.
A fixed construction meaning that an action was undertaken without delay.
- Lane · entry 1829
أَعْبَدَ
To collect oneself with others or assemble together.
Attested in a Form IV plural expression.
- Lane · entry 1830
أَعْبَدَ القَوْمُ بِالرَّجُلِ
For a group to gather against and beat a man.
The construction combines assembly with collective assault.
- Lane · entry 1830
أُعْبِدَ بِهِ
For a riding camel to become exhausted, fail, perish, fall ill, or stop its rider.
A passive Form IV construction, also explained as a transposed form of أُبْدِعَ بِهِ.
- Lane · entry 1830
تَعَبَّدَ
To become or make oneself a servant of God and devote oneself to religious exercises.
Includes applying oneself to acts of devotion and following Islam as one's religion.
- Lane · entry 1831
تَعَبَّدَ
Of a camel, to become refractory and difficult to manage.
An animal-related Form V usage, compared with a wild animal.
- Lane · entry 1831
تَعَبَّدَهُ
To call or invite someone to obedience.
A transitive Form V construction.
- Lane · entry 1831
تَعَبَّدَ البَعِيرَ
To drive a camel until it becomes fatigued and must stop.
A causative or transitive Form V construction.
- Lane · entry 1831
تَعَبْدَدُوا
For a people to go away in parties in every direction.
A special Form II lexical family related to عَبَادِيدُ, not a Quranic form group.
- Lane · entry 1834
عَبْد
Ignoble, base-born, or of low status.
A reported tropical application contrasting with حُرّ in the sense of noble or well-born.
- Lane · entry 1835
عَبْد
A sweet-smelling plant favored by camels and said to increase their milk and fatten them.
A botanical noun unrelated to the ordinary slave or worship branch.
- Lane · entry 1835
عَبْد
A short, broad blade, arrowhead, spearhead, or similar point.
A concrete noun for a weapon or tool head.
- Lane · entry 1835
عَبْد
In later common usage, a male black slave.
This is a historical usage distinction reported alongside مَمْلُوك for a male white slave; it is not imposed as a restriction on Quranic عَبْد.
- Lane · entry 1835
عَبَدَة
Strength, solidity, fatness, or lasting durability.
Used of a strong, substantial garment or a strong, well-fleshed she-camel; the same branch can denote continuance or durability.
- Lane · entry 1840
- Maqāyīs · row 3116
عَبَدَة
A stone used for bruising or pounding perfume.
A concrete noun distinct from the abstract sense of strength.
- Lane · entry 1840
عَبْدِيّ
A designation of certain superior, relatively heavy dirhams.
A relational adjective used in the expression الدَّرَاهِمُ العَبْدِيَّةُ.
- Lane · entry 1841
عَبْدَلِّي
A kind of melon associated with Egypt.
A post-Classical botanical name associated with ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir.
- Lane · entry 1848
أُمُّ عُبَيْد
A vacant, desolate, or waterless desert or tract of land.
The expression is also used as a proper-name designation for the desert.
- Lane · entry 1850
أُمُّ عُبَيْد
A great calamity or disastrous situation.
A figurative proverbial use derived from the image of a desolate desert inhabited by hissing serpents.
- Lane · entry 1850
عَبْد
A person devoted to serving and attending to worldly possessions or desires.
A Classical ethical extension, as in “servant of the dirham” or “servant of the dinar”; it is not assigned as a Quranic sense here.
- Mufradāt · row 936
العُبَيْدَة
A portion or appendage of the stomach of a ruminant.
Also called فَحِث or حَفِث.
- Lane · entry 1853
عُبُودِيَّة
The state or condition of being a slave; slavery or servitude.
This denotes a status or condition, distinct from the act of worship and from the individual slave.
- Lane · entry 1854
عَبَادِيد
Parties of people or horsemen going in every direction; dispersed groups.
A plural with no singular in the cited usage.
- Lane · entry 1856
عَبَادِيد
Diverse, far-extending roads.
Used chiefly with reference to dispersion and going away, not approach.
- Lane · entry 1856
عَبَادِيد
Hills or hillocks of the kind called إكام or آكام.
A reported concrete geographical use.
- Lane · entry 1856
عَبَادِيد
In an idiom, the extremities of the buttocks on which someone passes while riding.
Restricted to the cited idiomatic expression.
- Lane · entry 1856
عَبَادِيدِيّ
Relating to dispersed parties of people going in every direction.
A relational adjective formed from the plural-only noun عَبَادِيد.
- Lane · entry 1857
عَابِد
A servant, in a reported secondary or tropical use.
This Classical use is kept distinct from the Quranic participial sense of worshipper.
- Lane · entry 1858
مِعْبَد
An iron shovel or spade.
A concrete tool noun, plural مَعَابِد.
- Lane · entry 1861
مُعَبَّد
Of a camel, rendered submissive or tractable, trained, tarred, or affected with mange or scab.
The descriptions include a camel treated with tar, rendered submissive by treatment or disease, or set apart for anointing.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
Of a ship or boat, tarred or smeared with fat or oil.
A derived passive-participial use applied to a vessel.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
Of a road, beaten, trodden, or made easy by repeated travel.
Applied to a route frequently used by travelers.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
A wooden pin, peg, or stake.
A concrete noun attested in poetry.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
Of a camel, honored, cared for, and served.
This is reported as a contrary application alongside the sense of being rendered submissive.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
A camel left unridden.
An animal-related passive-participial use.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
Of a stallion camel, excited by lust or vehemently lustful.
Restricted to the cited application to a male camel.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُعَبَّد
Of a country or tract of land, without tracks, footprints, signs of a way, or water.
A geographical use describing unmarked or inaccessible land.
- Lane · entry 1863
مُتَعَبَّد
A place set apart for religious services, exercises, or acts of devotion.
A place noun derived from the devotional branch.
- Lane · entry 1865
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The alternate interpretation of عَبُدَ الطَّاغُوتِ is retained as Quran-focused evidence, but Lane's historical citation is not treated as a modern surah:ayah location.
The Quranic expression العابدين in 43:81 has materially different reported interpretations, including worshippers and angry or disdainful rejecters; the ordinary worshipper sense remains the primary presentation.
The Quranic noun group combines singular and several plural patterns. The evidence reports a common distinction between عبيد for owned slaves and عباد for servants or worshippers of God, but also notes broader overlap in divine-genitive constructions.