Quranic root
عيي
ʿ · y · y
The root centers on failure of capacity: inability to carry out an undertaking, with related incapacity in speech and fatigue in associated derivatives.
The lexical evidence distinguishes bodily fatigue, especially from walking or travel, from عِيّ, the inability to manage an affair or express oneself. Derived forms extend the root to bafflement, difficulty, sexual incapacity, incurable affliction, and enigmatic speech.
- Lane · entry 5402
- Lane · entry 5405
- Lane · entry 5416
- Mufradāt · row 1034
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- 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.
عَيِيَ
ʿayiya
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 2 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 be unable, or fail to find the way, to carry out an undertaking; in the Quran, to be incapable of accomplishing creation.
Used in the Quran with باء in بِالْخَلْقِ and بِخَلْقِهِنَّ, in interrogative or negative constructions concerning the ability to create. The lexical use denotes incapacity in carrying out the undertaking, although contextual translations may render it as being tired or wearied.
- Lane · entry 5402
- Mufradāt · row 1034
Selected Quran examples
Quran 46:33word 10
“tired”
Quran 50:15word 1
“Were We then tired”
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 12 Classical meanings
عَيِيَ / عَيَّ
To be unable to find the way to present an argument or express one's mind; by extension, to be unable to give information about a matter and hence to be ignorant of it.
Used of an argument, plea, evidence, or speech. The ignorance sense is explained as arising from inability to answer when asked.
- Lane · entry 5402
مُعَايَاةٌ
Enigmatical or obscure speech or action whose intended meaning or proper manner is difficult to discern; the act of addressing someone in riddling language.
A conventional verbal-noun usage, especially of speech made obscure or perplexing to another person.
- Lane · entry 5404
أَعْيَا
To become sexually incapacitated or unable to copulate.
Used with عَنْ in the construction عَيِيَ or أَعْيَا عَنِ الْجِمَاعِ.
- Lane · entry 5405
أَعْيَا
To become fatigued, tired, or wearied in walking or travel; transitively, to fatigue a person or animal.
The intransitive use concerns the one undertaking the journey; the transitive use may take a person or animal as the affected object.
- Lane · entry 5405
أَعْيَا
To disable or incapacitate someone; of an affair or disease, to baffle or frustrate a person's power or skill.
Used causatively of an affair, disease, or other cause that defeats a person's ability. The exclamatory expression مَا أَعْيَاهُ describes someone as markedly powerless or impotent.
- Lane · entry 5405
أَعْيَا
To prove difficult or arduous for someone, so that the right way to accomplish it is not found; to be elusive or hidden.
Used with عَلَيْهِ and related constructions of an affair or thing that resists successful execution or understanding.
- Lane · entry 5405
عَيٌّ / عَيِيٌّ
A person unable to find the right way to handle an affair, present an argument, or express ideas.
An epithet describing incapacity in practical action, argument, or expression.
- Lane · entry 5409
عَيَاءٌ
An incurable or intractable disease; in an idiomatic extension, stupidity regarded as an incurable affliction.
Used especially in the collocation الدَّاءُ الْعَيَاءُ for a disease for which no remedy is available.
- Lane · entry 5410
عَيِيٌّ
A stallion camel unable to mate without physical guidance.
An animal-specific descriptive use referring to a stallion whose organ must be directed into the female for mating.
- Lane · entry 5411
عَيَايَاءُ
A stallion camel that cannot mate, has never impregnated, or does not mate effectively; likewise, a man described as sexually impotent or as coarse, dull, and without sexual inclination.
Applied primarily to a male camel and, by extension, to a man; the latter characterization is reported as an attributed lexical explanation.
- Lane · entry 5413
أُعْيِيَّةٌ
An enigmatical or obscure utterance addressed to a companion.
A noun for a saying deliberately made difficult to understand, comparable to a riddle or obscured expression.
- Lane · entry 5415
مُعْىٍ
A person or camel fatigued by going or journeying.
Applied to a human or an animal affected by exertion in travel.
- Lane · entry 5416
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane evidence is matched through the packet's geminate-contraction correspondence to the contracted root عي/عى; this does not add further Quran-attested QAC form groups.
The Quranic contextual glosses 'tired' and 'Were We then tired' are interpretive renderings; the lexically supported Quranic construction concerns incapacity in carrying out creation, not the separate walking-or-travel fatigue sense.
No Maqayis entry was supplied for this root. The root orientation therefore rests on the supplied Lane and Quran-focused lexical evidence.