Quranic root
عدل
ʿ · d · l
The root centers on making things even, equal, straight, or appropriately balanced, and extends to equitable judgment, equivalent recompense, and assigning an equal counterpart.
The lexical tradition also preserves a contrasting branch of turning aside or becoming crooked. From the principle of evenness develop meanings of justice, equivalence, proportion, balance, and moderation; from deviation develop meanings of turning away and divergence from the right course.
- Maqāyīs · row 3158
- Mufradāt · row 955
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 8
- 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.
عَدَلَ
ʿadala
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To act equitably, justly, or rightly; to deal fairly.
Used for equitable treatment, judgment, distribution, and conduct. In the passages concerning wives, the context distinguishes fair division and maintenance from equality of affection and intimacy, which human beings cannot fully achieve.
- Lane · entry 2401
- Mufradāt · row 955
Selected Quran examples
Quran 5:8word 16
“Be just”
Quran 4:129word 4
“deal justly”
To turn aside or deviate from the truth or the right course.
This is the intransitive construction عَدَلَ عَنْ and related uses describing departure from a path, truth, or proper direction.
- Lane · entry 2401
- Mufradāt · row 955
Selected Quran examples
Quran 27:60word 27
“who ascribe equals”
To equate one thing or being with another; in a polemical religious construction, to assign a counterpart or partner to God.
The construction عَدَلَ بِرَبِّهِ / بِرَبِّهِمْ presents the supposed counterpart as equal to the Lord, hence associating a partner with Him.
- Lane · entry 2401
- Mufradāt · row 955
Selected Quran examples
Quran 27:60word 27
“who ascribe equals”
Quran 6:1word 14
“equate others with Him”
To offer an equivalent as ransom or compensation.
In the Quranic ransom construction, the verb takes an equivalent payment or substitute as its object or implied object.
- Lane · entry 2401
Selected Quran examples
Quran 6:70word 26
“it offers ransom”
To make balanced or proportionate.
In 82:7 the Form I reading describes the bringing of the human being into balanced or harmonious proportion. The lexical tradition also records a Form II reading of the same passage.
- Lane · entry 2402
Selected Quran examples
Quran 82:7word 4
“then balanced you”
عَدْل
ʿadl
- Part of speech
- Noun
- 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.
Justice, equity, rectitude, or fair dealing.
Used for moral, judicial, and social fairness, including equitable judgment and the just ordering of relations or recompense.
- Lane · entry 2408
- Mufradāt · row 955
Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:90word 4
“justice”
Quran 49:9word 25
“with justice”
Uprightness or recognized probity, especially the quality that makes a witness acceptable.
In the construction ذَوَا or ذَوِي عَدْل, the noun denotes the probity or upright character required of witnesses rather than an abstract judicial ruling.
- Lane · entry 2408
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 5:106word 14
“just”
Quran 65:2word 11
“just”
An equivalent compensation, substitute, or ransom.
Used where one thing is set against another as its equivalent, especially in expiation, redemption, or the absence of any compensating substitute.
- Lane · entry 2408
- Lane · entry 2409
- Mufradāt · row 955
Selected Quran examples
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:48عَدْلٌۭa compensation
- 2:123عَدْلٌۭany compensation
- 2:282بِٱلْعَدْلِ ۚin justice
- 2:282بِٱلْعَدْلِ ۚwith justice
- 4:3تَعْدِلُوا۟you can do justice
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 38 Classical meanings
عَدَلَ
To turn away, turn back, or return; also, for a stallion, to desist from covering.
This includes turning away from a person or road, returning toward someone or something, and causing or undergoing withdrawal in the context of animal covering.
- Lane · entry 2401
عَدَلَ
To make one thing equal or equivalent to another, or to balance corresponding loads.
Used for making things alike, counterbalancing household goods or burdens, and arranging a person and a companion so that their weight is balanced in a riding litter.
- Lane · entry 2401
- Lane · entry 2403
عَدَلَ
To turn or redirect a person, animal, or thing from its course.
A transitive construction used for redirecting an animal or person, turning an object toward a place, or removing a stallion from covering.
- Lane · entry 2401
عَدُلَ
To be or become upright, just, and acceptable in character.
Said especially of a person, and in legal usage of a witness whose character meets the standard of probity.
- Lane · entry 2401
عَدِلَ
To act wrongfully, unjustly, injuriously, or tyrannically.
This vocalized Form I branch expresses the opposite of equitable conduct.
- Lane · entry 2401
عَدَّلَ
To correct, straighten, or bring into proper condition; to make a judgment conform to what is right.
Also used of making an object straight or even and of correcting the measure of verse. The Quranic 82:7 passage is separately represented under the QAC Form I reading.
- Lane · entry 2402
عَدَّلَ
To equalize shares, weights, measures, or values.
The equalization may concern value and utility rather than merely physical quantity, as in distributing shares.
- Lane · entry 2402
عَدَّلَ
To bring the limbs to stillness and proper composure in the positions of prayer.
A technical ritual construction concerning bowing, prostration, standing, and sitting between ritual acts.
- Lane · entry 2402
عَدَّلَ
To declare a witness upright, trustworthy, and legally admissible.
Used in the legal evaluation of witnesses and their recognized probity.
- Lane · entry 2402
عَدَّلَ
To drink until becoming full.
An idiomatic use describing fullness after drinking, with the belly compared to a balanced load.
- Lane · entry 2402
عَادَلَ
To be equal or equivalent to another in weight, size, value, or utility; to balance corresponding loads.
Used for physical equivalence, equivalence in value or usefulness, and the balancing of two loads on a beast.
- Lane · entry 2403
عَادَلَ
To deliberate or hesitate between two alternatives.
The construction describes wavering between possible courses of action until one is preferred or chosen.
- Lane · entry 2403
عَادَلَ
To become crooked or bent.
An intransitive physical description, distinct from making something straight or balanced.
- Lane · entry 2403
تَعَدَّلَ
To become or be rendered straight, even, or equal.
Also used when the value of a commodity becomes equivalent to a specified standard.
- Lane · entry 2404
تَعَادَلَ
To be or become equal; also to be intermediate in quality.
The reciprocal form can describe two things becoming equal or a quality lying between extremes.
- Lane · entry 2405
اعْتَدَلَ
To become straight, even, equal, equable, proportionate, or harmonious in its parts.
Used of bodies, forms, stature, humps, verse, and other things whose parts or measures are brought into suitable proportion.
- Lane · entry 2407
اعْتَدَلَ
To be moderate or temperate in quantity, quality, or condition.
Includes a body between tallness and shortness, water between hot and cold, and pleasant weather of balanced temperature.
- Lane · entry 2407
عَدْل
Repayment, requital, compensation, or recompense.
This branch emphasizes an equivalent return or repayment and is kept distinct from the Quranic noun sense used specifically for ransom or substitute.
- Lane · entry 2408
عَدْل
A measure.
A metrical or commercial use, as in giving something by measure.
- Lane · entry 2408
عَدْل
A religious observance, whether obligatory or supererogatory.
The term is reported for both a divinely required act and an additional voluntary act.
- Lane · entry 2408
العَدْل
The Just, as a name of God: one whom desire does not cause to incline from right judgment.
A theological use describing freedom from partiality or deviation in judgment.
- Lane · entry 2408
عَدْل
Something intermediate, middling, or equidistant between two sides.
Used of an intermediate quality or a place midway between two parties.
- Lane · entry 2408
عَدْل
In the proverb وضع على يدي عدل, a state of being consigned to someone or something from which escape is hopeless.
The expression derives from the name of a chief to whom condemned persons were delivered and is used proverbially for despair of release.
- Lane · entry 2408
عِدْل
The like, equal, or counterpart of a thing, especially an equivalent perceived by the senses.
In the reported distinction from عَدْل, this form is associated with things of the same kind or with weighed, counted, or measured objects; the sources also record variation in the distinction.
- Lane · entry 2409
عِدْل
A half-load or burden balanced by another half-load; an equal companion in weight or size.
Used of the two loads carried on opposite sides of a beast or of two persons balanced in a riding litter.
- Lane · entry 2409
عَدَل
The equalizing of two balanced half-loads.
A verbal noun for arranging the two loads so that they counterbalance one another.
- Lane · entry 2410
عُدَلَة
Persons who certify witnesses as upright and trustworthy.
A specialized legal designation for those who pronounce witnesses to possess the required probity.
- Lane · entry 2412
عَدَالَة
The established probity and moral reliability required of a witness.
The legal quality includes habitual honesty and sound conduct; minor lapses, mistakes, forgetfulness, or a non-obvious interpretation do not by themselves negate it.
- Lane · entry 2414
عَدَوْلَى
An old, tall tree; by extension, anything old.
The source also records the word as a designation for old trees generally.
- Lane · entry 2417
عَدَوْلِيّ
A seaman or mariner.
A lexical use distinct from the related place-name and ship designation.
- Lane · entry 2418
عَدَوْلِيَّة
A certain kind or class of ship or boat.
The designation is variously connected with a place, a people, or a person associated with shipbuilding; the lexical meaning is the ship or boat name itself.
- Lane · entry 2418
عَادِل
One who attributes a copartner or partners to God.
An active-participial designation derived from the Quranic construction of assigning an equal to the Lord; it is retained under its own headword rather than conflated with the Form I verb.
- Lane · entry 2419
مَعْدِل
A place of turning away or turning back.
Used for an outlet or route by which one may turn in another direction.
- Lane · entry 2420
مَعْدِل
A way, course, or manner of acting.
Can describe a right or wrong course of conduct and a person's habitual ways of acting.
- Lane · entry 2420
مُعَدَّل
Anything straightened or made even.
A passive participial noun for an object brought into straightness or evenness.
- Lane · entry 2422
مُعَدَّلَات
The angles or corners of a house or chamber.
A plural technical or architectural use.
- Lane · entry 2423
مُعْتَدِل
Straight, even, proportionate, harmonious, or centered.
Used of bodily proportions and other forms; it can describe a horse whose blaze occupies the middle of the forehead and a she-camel whose limbs are proportionate.
- Lane · entry 2425
مُعْتَدِل
Moderate or temperate in quantity, quality, or temperature.
Used of pleasant days, balanced conditions, and things lying between extremes.
- Lane · entry 2425
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The reading in Quran 82:7 is associated in the lexical evidence with both Form I فَعَدَلَكَ and Form II فَعَدَّلَكَ, with differing interpretations; the QAC form group is retained as Form I.
The sources distinguish, though not without reported disagreement, between عَدْل for mentally apprehended equivalence or justice and عِدْل for sensory or measured equivalence. The distinction is therefore stated cautiously rather than treated as absolute.