Quranic root
عثر
ʿ · th · r
The root has two established semantic orientations: coming upon or gaining awareness of something, and raising or producing dust.
The lexical tradition connects stumbling and discovery through encountering or inspecting what caused the stumble, while separately preserving the dust-and-trace branch. The Quran uses the first orientation for discovery and making something known.
- Maqāyīs · row 3135
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- 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.
عَثَرَ
ʿathara
- 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.
To be discovered or become known; to come upon knowledge of something.
In the Quranic passive construction عُثِرَ عَلَى, the matter becomes known or is discovered, characteristically without deliberate seeking.
- Lane · entry 2088
- Mufradāt · row 945
Selected Quran examples
Quran 5:107word 2
“it is discovered”
أَعْثَرَ
ʾaʿthara
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- 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 make someone discover or become aware of something; to disclose or make known to them.
The Quranic construction أَعْثَرَ عَلَى expresses causing others to discover or learn of something without their having sought it.
- Lane · entry 2090
- Mufradāt · row 945
Selected Quran examples
Quran 18:21word 2
“We made known”
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 37 Classical meanings
عَثَرَ
To stumble, trip, or fall, especially falling forward or upon the face.
The basic physical verb; it is used of a person or animal and may be followed by فِي for stumbling on or over something.
- Lane · entry 2088
عَثَرَ
To stumble or falter in speech.
A figurative extension of physical stumbling, including halting, hesitating, or faltering of the tongue.
- Lane · entry 2088
عَثَرَ
To lie or speak falsely.
A figurative usage attested in the expression العَثْرِ وَالبَائِنِ.
- Lane · entry 2088
عَثَرَ
To enter suddenly or unexpectedly upon an affair or situation.
A figurative usage describing an unexpected encounter with an affair on which another had not entered.
- Lane · entry 2088
عَثَرَ جَدُّهُ
For one's fortune or good fortune to fall or decline.
A figurative expression likening failing fortune to a person who has stumbled or fallen.
- Lane · entry 2088
عَثَرَ العِرْقُ
For a vein to pulse.
A specialized bodily usage.
- Lane · entry 2088
عَثَرَ بِهِمْ الزَّمَانُ
For time or fortune to destroy people or cause them to be overcome.
An idiomatic figurative construction in which time or circumstance brings about ruin or defeat.
- Lane · entry 2088
أَعْثَرَ
To cause someone to stumble, trip, or fall.
The causative Form IV physical usage; it may also mean causing someone to fall prostrate.
- Lane · entry 2090
أَعْثَرَ بِهِ
To impugn someone's character before an authority and seek his downfall.
A figurative causative construction used with an authority or ruler.
- Lane · entry 2090
أَعْثَرَ جَدَّهُ
To cause someone's fortune or good fortune to fall.
A causative figurative expression derived from the physical notion of making someone fall.
- Lane · entry 2090
أَعْثَرَ عَلَى
To guide or show someone the way to other people.
A causative directional usage distinct from simply causing someone to discover information.
- Lane · entry 2090
عَثْيَرَ
To raise dust, earth, or small pieces of dry clay by the extremities of the toes while walking.
A specialized Form Q.Q usage associated with the dust raised by walking.
- Lane · entry 2092
عَيْثَرَ
To see or behold something and identify or single it out.
The verb may describe seeing an object or individuating it by observation.
- Lane · entry 2092
عَيْثَرَ الطَّيْرَ
To observe birds, including seeing their movement and taking an omen from it.
A conventional bird-observation and augury construction.
- Lane · entry 2092
عُثْرٌ
A lie or falsehood.
A nominal usage separate from the verb meaning “to lie.”
- Lane · entry 2094
عَثْرَةٌ
A stumble or trip while walking or proceeding.
The noun also has a regular plural عَثَرَاتٌ.
- Lane · entry 2096
عَثْرَةٌ
A slip, lapse, fault, wrong action, or mistake.
A figurative noun for falling into error, sin, or wrongdoing.
- Lane · entry 2096
العَثْرَة
War or fighting.
A figurative conventional usage in which warfare is treated as an occasion of stumbling; the cited expression advises not beginning hostilities.
- Lane · entry 2096
عَثِرَةٌ
High land without herbage and covered with dust.
A specialized geographical noun, associated with عِثْيَر dust.
- Lane · entry 2097
عَثَرِيٌّ
Watered by rain alone or by water flowing over the surface of the ground.
Used especially of palm trees or crops receiving natural rainwater or runoff rather than deliberate irrigation.
- Lane · entry 2098
عَثَرِيٌّ
Unoccupied or not engaged in seeking the affairs of this world or the next.
A figurative adjectival usage; جَاءَ فُلَانٌ عَثَرِيًّا means that he came unoccupied.
- Lane · entry 2098
عَثُورٌ
One who stumbles, trips, and falls often.
An intensive or habitual characterization of a person who frequently stumbles.
- Lane · entry 2100
عِثْيَرٌ
Dust, especially dust that rises or spreads.
A noun synonymous with غُبَارٌ, عَجَاجٌ, or تُرَابٌ in the cited descriptions.
- Lane · entry 2101
عِثْيَرٌ
Dust, clay, or compact earth turned over by the extremities of the feet while walking.
The expression may refer to the disturbed earth left without a clear ordinary footprint.
- Lane · entry 2101
عِثْيَرٌ
An obscure or barely discernible trace or mark.
It may be contrasted with أَثَرٌ as a less conspicuous trace; some reported explanations extend the expression to bodily form, but the core attested sense is an obscure trace.
- Lane · entry 2101
عِثْيَرَةٌ
A land containing much dust.
An adjectival or descriptive usage applied to land.
- Lane · entry 2102
عَاثِرٌ
Stumbling or tripping; one who stumbles.
An active-participial or adjectival usage derived from the physical sense of عَثَرَ.
- Lane · entry 2103
عَاثِرٌ
A liar.
A figurative adjectival usage.
- Lane · entry 2103
عَاثِرٌ
Failing or fallen, said of fortune or good fortune.
The expression جَدٌّ عَاثِرٌ characterizes fortune as being in a falling state.
- Lane · entry 2103
عَاثِرٌ
A hunter's snare.
This sense is reported in an interpretation of the plural عَوَاثِرُ.
- Lane · entry 2103
عَاثِرَةٌ
An accident or calamity that destroys a person or causes him to be overcome.
This meaning is reported as the sense of the related feminine noun underlying one interpretation of عَوَاثِرُ.
- Lane · entry 2103
عَيْثَرٌ
The substance or bodily form of a thing.
A concrete noun synonymous in this usage with عَيْنٌ or شَخْصٌ.
- Lane · entry 2104
عَاثُورٌ
A pit, trap, or other thing prepared to make an animal or person fall; a thing by which one is made to stumble and fall.
Its primary description is a pit dug to catch a lion or another animal; it may also denote a bark-made snare.
- Lane · entry 2106
عَاثُورٌ
A cause or place of perdition or death; something perilous or destructive.
A figurative extension of the trap meaning, including use as an epithet for something perilous or destructive.
- Lane · entry 2106
عَاثُورٌ
Difficulty, distress, or evil.
The expression عَاثُورُ شَرٍّ describes falling into confusion, evil, or hardship.
- Lane · entry 2106
عَاثُورٌ
A channel dug to irrigate a palm tree.
A specialized agricultural usage concerning a naturally or surface-watered palm.
- Lane · entry 2106
عَاثُورٌ
A well.
A separately reported concrete noun usage.
- Lane · entry 2106
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic Form I token is passive, while the public headword is normalized to the Form I dictionary citation form عَثَرَ.
The proposed eagle meaning associated with عُثْرٌ is explicitly identified in the evidence as erroneous and is not treated as a lexical meaning of this root.