Quranic root
عتب
ʿ · t · b
The root centers on difficulty, elevation, or roughness, and extends to the displeasure or grievance arising from what is difficult or objectionable.
The physical image of a raised step, threshold, or rugged ascent develops into meanings of hardship, reproach, and resentment, then into returning from conduct that caused displeasure and restoring goodwill.
- Maqāyīs · row 3126
- Mufradāt · row 940
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- Quran senses
- 5
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
اِسْتَعْتَبَ
āistaʿtaba
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form X
- Form
- X
- Quran occurrences
- 4 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 solicit favor or reconciliation, asking to be restored to another’s good will or to conduct that pleases him.
The active Quranic use expresses seeking or petitioning favor. In the Quranic context, the requested favor is God’s, and the requested return is to conduct pleasing to Him.
- Lane · entry 1978
- Mufradāt · row 940
Selected Quran examples
Quran 41:24word 7
“they ask for favor”
To be asked to return to pleasing conduct, or to be allowed or accepted back into favor.
This sense represents the passive Quranic construction. The passages are interpreted either as denying the condemned any further opportunity to seek a return to what pleases God, or as denying that they will be restored to favor.
- Lane · entry 1978
- Mufradāt · row 940
Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:84word 14
“will be asked to make amends”
Quran 30:57word 9
“will be allowed to make amends”
Quran 45:35word 16
“will be asked to appease”
مُعْتَب
muʿtab
- Part of speech
- Passive participle
- 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.
Regarded with favor; accepted back into good will or reconciliation.
The Quranic plural مُعْتَبِين is used in a construction denying that the condemned will be restored to favor.
- Lane · entry 1978
- Mufradāt · row 940
Selected Quran examples
Quran 41:24word 11
“those who receive favor”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 16:84يُسْتَعْتَبُونَwill be asked to make amends
- 30:57يُسْتَعْتَبُونَwill be allowed to make amends
- 41:24يَسْتَعْتِبُوا۟they ask for favor
- 41:24ٱلْمُعْتَبِينَthose who receive favor
- 45:35يُسْتَعْتَبُونَwill be asked to appease
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 47 Classical meanings
عَتَبَ عَلَيْهِ
To be angry with, reproach, blame, or censure someone.
The reproach may arise from displeasure, especially friendly displeasure, and may express a desire that the person abandon the conduct causing the grievance.
- Lane · entry 1971
عَتَبَ بَابَهُ
To tread upon or approach the threshold of someone’s door.
A conventional verbal construction referring to the threshold of a door.
- Lane · entry 1971
عَتَبَ
To limp, halt, or hop on one foot or three legs.
Used of a person or animal whose gait is impaired, including a hamstrung or distorted leg.
- Lane · entry 1971
عَتَبَ البَرْقُ
For lightning to flash in continued succession.
A figurative Form I construction.
- Lane · entry 1971
عَتَبَ مِنْ مَوْضِعٍ إِلَى مَوْضِعٍ
To pass from place to place, or shift from one statement or matter to another.
A figurative movement from one location, saying, or subject to another.
- Lane · entry 1971
عَتَبَ القَوْمُ فِي السَّيْرِ
For travelers to turn aside and settle in a place away from the intended direction.
A figurative or specialized journeying construction.
- Lane · entry 1971
عَتَّبَ
To make or construct a threshold or step.
Used of making a threshold or a step by which one ascends.
- Lane · entry 1972
عَتَّبَ سَرَاوِيلَهُ
To draw together and fold the tuck of one’s garment.
A conventional garment-adjustment expression, especially in preparation for active work.
- Lane · entry 1972
عَتَّبَ
To become slow, tardy, dilatory, late, or backward.
A reported specialized use of Form II.
- Lane · entry 1972
عَاتَبَ؛ تَعَاتَبَ
For two people to reproach, blame, or expostulate with one another.
The exchange may be friendly and confidential, with each person recalling the other’s conduct and seeking to repair the relationship.
- Lane · entry 1973
- Lane · entry 1976
عَاتَبَ
To discipline, train, exercise, or make tractable.
Especially used of training horses so that they abandon undesirable habits and accept discipline.
- Lane · entry 1973
عَاتَبَ الأَدِيمَ
To put a hide back into the tanning process.
A figurative or technical tanning expression.
- Lane · entry 1973
أَعْتَبَ
To grant someone goodwill or favor, or to make that person pleased and content.
Form IV may also mean to remove a complaint or reproach by returning from harmful conduct to conduct that satisfies the offended person.
- Lane · entry 1974
أَعْتَبَ
To cancel a bargain, agreement, or compact with someone.
A distinct Form IV contractual use.
- Lane · entry 1974
اعْتَبَ
To return from evil, sin, or an offense, or to turn back or revert from a thing.
The return may be from an evil action to conduct that restores another’s satisfaction, or more generally from an affair or course previously undertaken.
- Lane · entry 1974
أُعْتِبَ؛ عَتَبٌ
A persistent defect, swelling, or lameness in a bone or limb after an imperfectly set fracture.
Used of a physical defect remaining after the bone has been set; the same lexical field is extended to an animal’s impaired leg.
- Lane · entry 1974
- Lane · entry 1981
تَعَتَّبَ
To accuse someone of a crime, offense, or harmful act that he did not commit.
A specialized Form V use involving false accusation.
- Lane · entry 1975
لَا يُتَعَتَّبُ
Not to be subject to reproach, blame, or censure.
Used in impersonal or passive constructions stating that no reproach is directed at someone concerning a matter.
- Lane · entry 1975
تَعَتَّبَ
To remain at or keep to the threshold of a door.
A conventional Form V construction involving a door threshold.
- Lane · entry 1975
اعْتَتَبَ
To recede, retreat, or turn back after proceeding in a direction.
Used of retreating in a route or withdrawing from the course being followed.
- Lane · entry 1977
اعْتَتَبَ الطَّرِيقَ
To leave the even, easy part of a road and take the rugged part.
A specialized Form VIII route construction.
- Lane · entry 1977
اعْتَتَبَ مِنَ الجَبَلِ
To ascend a mountain.
The ascent is described as proceeding over or through a difficult mountain route.
- Lane · entry 1977
اعْتَتَبَ فِي الأَمْرِ
To pursue a right or direct course in a matter.
A figurative Form VIII use, synonymous with taking a deliberate or direct course.
- Lane · entry 1977
اِسْتَعْتَبَ
To ask someone to cancel a bargain, agreement, or compact.
A Form X contractual request distinct from soliciting goodwill generally.
- Lane · entry 1978
عِتْبٌ؛ عَتَّابٌ
A person who reproves, blames, or censures frequently.
The reproving may be directed at a companion or friend, often from solicitous affection or displeasure.
- Lane · entry 1980
- Lane · entry 1988
عَتَبٌ
The frets or transverse ridges of a lute.
A specialized musical-instrument sense, apparently based on the image of a series of steps.
- Lane · entry 1981
عَتَبٌ
The rugged places or ascents of mountains; ruggedness of ground.
Used of difficult terrain and its raised or ascending places.
- Lane · entry 1981
عَتَبٌ
The space between two mountains.
A topographical use of the noun.
- Lane · entry 1981
عَتَبٌ
The space between the fingers.
The exact fingers or measurement convention vary in the lexical reports.
- Lane · entry 1981
عَتَبٌ
A bend or bluntness in the striking part of a sword.
Figuratively, the term can describe bending or recoiling in obedience or conduct.
- Lane · entry 1981
عَتَبٌ
Unsoundness or an impairing defect in an animal’s leg or in an affair.
The sense covers physical impairment and its figurative extension to something vitiated or impaired.
- Lane · entry 1981
عَتَبَةٌ
A door threshold, lintel, or step.
The principal sense is the lower part of a doorway upon which one treads; the word also denotes a single step in a series.
- Lane · entry 1982
عَتَبَةٌ
A wife, by metonymic extension from the threshold of a house.
A figurative conventional use, not a literal architectural meaning.
- Lane · entry 1982
العَتَبَتَانِ
Two named figures in geomancy.
A technical use referring to the outer and inner figures called the two thresholds.
- Lane · entry 1982
عَتَبَةُ وَادٍ
The extreme side or bend of a valley next to the mountain.
A topographical use with variant explanations for the precise part of the valley intended.
- Lane · entry 1982
عَتَبَةٌ
A hardship, difficulty, or hateful and trying affair.
Used in expressions for being driven or subjected to an afflictive matter, including the severities of death.
- Lane · entry 1982
عُتْبَى
Goodwill, favor, satisfaction, or the restoration of a relationship after displeasure.
It can denote returning from an offense to conduct that pleases the reprover, and by extension simply returning from an evil action.
- Lane · entry 1983
عِتْبَانٌ
Reproach or evidence of restored favor.
The usage is disputed: some lexical reports equate it with restoration of favor, while another report restricts it to reproving someone for harmful conduct.
- Lane · entry 1984
عِتْبَانٌ
A male hyena; in a related expression, a female hyena.
The designation is tentatively connected with the animal’s limping gait.
- Lane · entry 1984
عَتُوبٌ
One upon whom reproach, blame, or censure has no effect.
An intensive descriptive noun or adjective.
- Lane · entry 1986
عَتُوبٌ
A road or way.
A rare lexical report with no further construction supplied.
- Lane · entry 1986
عَتِيبَةٌ
A town or village containing little good or few good things.
Used attributively of a settlement.
- Lane · entry 1987
أُعْتُوبَةٌ
Speech with which someone is reproved, blamed, or censured.
A noun for the words or discourse exchanged in reproach.
- Lane · entry 1989
مَعْتُوبٌ
Reproved, blamed, or censured.
The normal passive description is مَعْتُوبٌ عَلَيْهِ, someone against whom reproach is directed.
- Lane · entry 1991
مَعْتُوبٌ
Corrupting, vitiating, or rendering unsound.
This alternative interpretation is attributed to one authority and is explicitly reported with uncertainty.
- Lane · entry 1991
مُعْتَتَبٌ
Turning away or having turned away from a prior direction or attachment.
A participial use corresponding to the Form VIII sense of receding or turning aside.
- Lane · entry 1992
مُسْتَعْتَبٌ
An opportunity or occasion for soliciting favor or reconciliation.
A noun corresponding to اِسْتِعْتَاب, used especially in the expression that no such request remains after death.
- Lane · entry 1993
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic Form X group contains both active and passive surface forms. The active use solicits favor, while the passive construction concerns being asked or allowed to return to favor; Lane records competing interpretations of the related Quranic reading.
The passive participle مُعْتَبِين is presented under the singular dictionary citation مُعْتَب. The reported alternative sense of مُعْتُوبٌ as “corrupting” is retained separately because its source marks it as uncertain.
The meaning of عِتْبَانٌ is disputed in the lexical evidence: it is reported both for restored favor and for reproach.