Quranic root
عسعس
ʿ · s · ʿ · s
The root centers on approaching or seeking something, especially through nocturnal ranging or pursuit, alongside a distinct branch of lightness, scantness, or reduced quantity.
The simple verb extends from night patrol and searching to agent nouns and derived seeking constructions. The reduplicated form describes the night at either boundary—approaching and darkening or departing—while the departure sense is also analyzed as an inversion related to سَعْسَعَ. The lightness branch appears in scant feeding and reluctant or limited milk yield.
- Maqāyīs · row 3200
- Lane · entry 3156
- Lane · entry 3158
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 1
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
عَسْعَسَ
ʿasʿasa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
For the night to approach or come on, with darkness arriving.
Used of the night at its beginning; the lexical tradition also records the related sense of the night being dark, potentially throughout the night.
- Lane · entry 3158
- Mufradāt · row 975
For the night or its darkness to depart or recede.
Used of the night at its end. The form is reported with opposite readings in the Quranic expression, and this reading is the one reflected by the supplied contextual gloss.
- Lane · entry 3158
- Mufradāt · row 975
Selected Quran examples
Quran 81:17word 3
“it departs”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 81:17عَسْعَسَit departs
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 32 Classical meanings
عَسَّ
To go about by night in search or pursuit; to patrol, investigate suspicious persons, seek prey or sustenance, or range to and fro.
Used of a person, wolf, or other beast of prey; the nocturnal searching sense may include smelling out prey.
- Lane · entry 3156
عَسَّ
For tidings to be slow or tardy.
A predicative use concerning the delay of news or tidings.
- Lane · entry 3156
عَسَّ
For a she-camel to yield little milk or to yield it unwillingly, sometimes with repeated grumbling during milking.
A camel-specific use covering scant or reluctant milk production.
- Lane · entry 3156
عَسَّ
For a she-camel to pasture alone.
A camel-specific use.
- Lane · entry 3156
عَسَّ
To be parsimonious with someone in one's wealth.
Occurs with عَلَى in the cited construction.
- Lane · entry 3156
عَسَّهُ
To seek or track someone or something; by night, to search for prey or sustenance, trace footsteps, or pursue vice.
The transitive construction may take a person, thing, traces, or an abstract object.
- Lane · entry 3156
عَسَّ القَوْمَ
To feed a people or party with a small or scant quantity of food.
A causative feeding construction.
- Lane · entry 3156
إِعْتَسَسَ
To travel through a country and learn its conditions or news.
A Form VIII derived seeking construction.
- Lane · entry 3157
إِعْتَسَسَ
To seek or obtain a she-camel's milk, including by entering among camels and stroking their udders to induce milk yield.
A Form VIII construction used with camels or a she-camel's milk.
- Lane · entry 3157
عَسِّكَ
In the expression عَسِّكَ وَبِسِّكَ, from wherever one can obtain it; from any or every quarter.
An idiomatic expression meaning roughly “from where it is and where it is not” or “whence you will.”
- Lane · entry 3160
عُسٌّ
A large drinking cup or bowl, larger than an ordinary قَدَح and sufficient for two or more people to drink from.
Plural forms include عِسَاسٌ, عِسَسَةٌ, and أَعْسَاسٌ.
- Lane · entry 3161
عُسٌّ
Something apparent, manifest, or conspicuous.
An assumed figurative use in the expression عَلَى ظَهْرِ العُسِّ.
- Lane · entry 3161
عُسٌّ
The penis.
An anatomical noun.
- Lane · entry 3161
عُسُسٌ
Slowness or tardiness.
A verbal-noun or abstract nominal use.
- Lane · entry 3163
عُسُسٌ
Covetous merchants or traders.
A plural or collective designation for traders characterized by avidity.
- Lane · entry 3163
عُسُسٌ
Large vessels or containers.
A nominal plural use.
- Lane · entry 3163
عِسَاسٌ
A trace, footprint, vestige, or similar indication left behind.
A nominal use for evidence of passage or remaining indication.
- Lane · entry 3164
عِسَاسٌ
The thinness or attenuation of darkness.
Associated with the two edges of the night.
- Mufradāt · row 975
عَسُوسٌ
A seeker or pursuer of prey, especially by night; by extension, a wolf or other beast of prey, or a dog that pursues persistently and will not eat.
An agent noun applied to animals characterized by repeated searching or pursuit.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسُوسٌ
A she-camel that yields little or reluctant milk, delays before yielding it, circles away when approached for milking, grumbles, kicks, or spills the milk.
A camel-specific adjective with several reported descriptions of difficult or conditional milking.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسُوسٌ
A she-camel that pastures alone.
A camel-specific use.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسُوسٌ
A she-camel that searches for bones and eats the flesh remaining on them.
A camel-specific feeding description.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسُوسٌ
A woman who does not mind men approaching her, or who ventures into conduct that occasions suspicion or evil opinion.
A gender-specific personal description explicitly reported for this adjective.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسُوسٌ
A man in whom there is little or no goodness, or who does little good.
A personal description of deficient goodness or benefit.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسُوسٌ
One who is slow or tardy.
An adjectival personal description.
- Lane · entry 3165
عَسْعَاسٌ
A mirage.
A nominal use distinct from the reduplicated night verb.
- Lane · entry 3169
عَسَاعِسُ
Hedgehogs.
A plural designation explained by their frequent going to and fro by night.
- Lane · entry 3170
عَاسٌّ
One who patrols or goes the rounds by night, especially to guard people and investigate suspicious persons; also any seeker of a thing.
Used for a nocturnal patrolman or, more broadly, a seeker.
- Lane · entry 3171
مَعَسٌّ
A place where something is sought or may be sought.
A place noun synonymous with مَطْلَبٌ.
- Lane · entry 3172
تَعَسْعَسَ
For a wolf to approach something while sniffing it.
A Form II reduplicated construction describing an animal's approach in search of something.
- Maqāyīs · row 3200
عَسْعَسَ
For clouds to approach the earth at night.
A conventional nocturnal construction, especially when darkness and lightning are present.
- Lane · entry 3158
عَسْعَسٌ
A place or locality called عَسْعَسٌ.
An isolated nominal usage reported as outside the principal semantic branches.
- Maqāyīs · row 3200
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
عَسْعَسَ in 81:17 is a reported contronym: the supplied lexical evidence preserves both the approach or darkening of night and its departure. The contextual Quran gloss supports the departure reading but does not by itself establish the lexical senses. This entry does not treat Lane's historical citation notation as an additional modern verse location.