Quranic root
حظر
ḥ · ẓ · r
A semantic field of preventing, withholding, and keeping apart.
The root extends from abstract prohibition and debarment to concrete barriers, enclosures, confinement, and protection, including the maker of an enclosure.
- Maqāyīs · row 1396
- Lane · entry 14926
- Lane · entry 14927
- Lane · entry 14930
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- 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.
مَحْظُور
maḥẓūr
- 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.
Forbidden, prohibited, or interdicted.
Used of something made impermissible or barred.
- Lane · entry 14928
- Mufradāt · row 340
Withheld or restricted, being confined to one class or group to the exclusion of others.
A Quran-attested use describing limited access or distribution rather than unrestricted availability.
- Lane · entry 14928
Selected Quran examples
Quran 17:20word 12
“restricted”
مُحْتَظِر
muḥtaẓir
- Part of speech
- Active 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.
One who makes an enclosure or fence.
In the Quranic simile, the enclosure-maker is associated with the dry plant fragments collected or forming such an enclosure.
- Lane · entry 14930
- Mufradāt · row 340
Selected Quran examples
Quran 54:31word 8
“(used by) a fence builder”
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 15 Classical meanings
حَظَرَ
To forbid, prohibit, or interdict something.
The prohibited object may be expressed directly or with عَلَيْهِ.
- Lane · entry 14921
حَظَرَ
To debar something from someone by means of an intervening barrier or obstruction.
Describes something being kept from a person by an intervening thing.
- Lane · entry 14921
حَظَرَ
To take something for oneself while withholding it from others.
The meaning is explicitly explained as appropriation accompanied by exclusion of others.
- Lane · entry 14921
حَظَرَ
To confine livestock in an enclosure.
Used of enclosing or keeping cattle within a حَظِيرَة or حَظَار.
- Lane · entry 14921
حَظَرَ
To make an enclosure for oneself or for another.
The enclosure is a constructed حَظِيرَة; the use may be transitive with the beneficiary understood or expressed.
- Lane · entry 14921
- Mufradāt · row 340
حَظَّرَ
To mark off or assign separating limits.
A specialized use for dividing or allotting an area by fixed boundaries; the evidence presents this meaning tentatively.
- Lane · entry 14922
اِحْتَظَرَ
To protect or defend oneself by means of something.
An assumed figurative use with بِهِ or بِهَا.
- Lane · entry 14924
حَظِر
Trees used for making an enclosure, and fresh thorns used as enclosure material.
The noun may denote the physical plant material itself.
- Lane · entry 14925
حَظِر
In idiomatic expressions, a large number of cattle or people, and figuratively an odious lie, slander, or falsehood.
In أتى أو جاء بالحَظِرِ الرَّطْبِ it may describe a large herd or crowd or, figuratively, offensive falsehood; kindling in the fresh-thorn enclosure denotes spreading calumny.
- Lane · entry 14925
حِظَار
A wall, enclosure wall, barrier, partition, obstruction, or fence.
Denotes anything intervening between a person and a thing or between two things.
- Lane · entry 14926
حَظِيرَة
An enclosure or pen made of trees, wood, canes, or reeds, especially for confining and protecting livestock.
Used of enclosures for camels, sheep, goats, and similar animals, including protection from cold and wind.
- Lane · entry 14927
حَظِيرَة
Paradise in the expression حَظِيرَةُ القُدْسِ.
A figurative or traditional expression.
- Lane · entry 14927
حَظِيرَة
A person of little or no good; figuratively, niggardly, tenacious, penurious, or avaricious.
Occurs in the expression نَكِدُ الحَظِيرَةِ.
- Lane · entry 14927
حَظِيرَة
A place in which dates are dried.
A dialectal use reported for Najd; related variant forms are also recorded.
- Lane · entry 14927
مُحْتَظَر
An enclosure, in an alternative vocalization of the Quranic simile involving the dry fragments of an enclosure.
This is distinct from مُحْتَظِر, the maker of an enclosure, and reflects the alternative reading discussed for the expression at 54:31.
- Lane · entry 14930
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane's printed Quran citation for مَحْظُور is not used as a modern verse location; the example is anchored to the independently supplied QAC occurrence at 17:20.
مُحْتَظِر and the alternative مُحْتَظَر reading in the 54:31 simile are lexically distinct and are kept separate.