Quranic root
حبك
ḥ · b · k
Making something firm, compact, and well-ordered through binding, weaving, or closely arranged extension.
The root develops from securing or compacting a thing to well-woven forms, well-knit bodies, waist-binding, and ordered tracks or patterns such as those associated with the sky.
- Maqāyīs · row 1284
- Mufradāt · row 291
- 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.
حُبُك
ḥubuk
- Part of speech
- Noun · plural
- 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.
Paths, tracks, or ordered streaks, especially the courses of stars, the Milky Way, or streaks of cloud in the sky.
In the Quranic expression وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ, the term may denote visible heavenly paths or patterns. The Quran-focused interpretation also allows these paths to be understood as intelligible orders perceived through reflection, not only as physical tracks.
- Lane · entry 13359
- Mufradāt · row 291
Selected Quran examples
Quran 51:7word 3
“pathways”
Beautifully ordered structure or construction, specifically the well-formed constitution of the heavens.
This is an alternative Quranic interpretation of ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ, emphasizing the heavens' beautiful, firmly ordered construction rather than their visible tracks.
- Lane · entry 13359
- Maqāyīs · row 1284
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 51:7ٱلْحُبُكِpathways
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 18 Classical meanings
حَبَكَ
To bind or tie; to make fast, firm, compact, or well-finished; to weave a material firmly and well.
Used of cloth and other things; the result may be described as well-made or beautiful in its workmanship.
- Lane · entry 13353
حَبَكَ
To strike, cut, or sever with a sword.
Attested of striking the middle or waist, cutting flesh above the bone, severing the neck, and cutting a structure such as a grape-vine trellis.
- Lane · entry 13353
حَبَكَ
To sew together the leaves of a book or bind a book.
A later or current usage recorded as an extension of binding.
- Lane · entry 13353
حَبَّكَ
To make a knot firm or fast.
Form II usage centered on securing a knot.
- Lane · entry 13354
حَبَّكَ
To stripe or weave with stripes.
Used of a striped or stripe-woven garment.
- Lane · entry 13354
تَحَبَّكَ
To bind oneself with a waistband or gird oneself by raising or tucking up one's clothes.
Used of securing clothing around the waist; the source's example involving a woman does not impose a gender restriction on the construction.
- Lane · entry 13355
اِحْتَبَكَ
To bind or tuck up the waist-wrapper and thereby gird oneself.
A clothing construction associated with اِحْتِبَاءٌ; the lexical discussion records a distinction between this form and related forms of the root.
- Lane · entry 13353
حُبْكَةٌ
A waistband or the binding part of a waist-wrapper; also the folded portion let down from it for carrying something, or a cord or garment used to bind the waist.
The word may refer either to the tied part of the garment or to the cord or garment performing the binding.
- Lane · entry 13358
حُبْكَةٌ
A thong joining the head of a camel saddle to its supporting pieces.
Used of the corresponding fastening in saddles such as the قَتَب or رَحْل.
- Lane · entry 13358
عَقَدَ حُبَكَ النِّطَاقِ
To prepare oneself to depart or to devote oneself exclusively and diligently to an affair.
A figurative idiom based on fastening the waistband.
- Lane · entry 13358
حِبَاكٌ
An enclosure for cattle made from reeds or pieces of wood placed crosswise and tied together.
The term denotes the bound construction itself.
- Lane · entry 13359
حِبَاكٌ
The selvages or border threads of a garment or piece of felt.
Includes the black threads sewn along the borders or extremities of the material.
- Lane · entry 13359
حِبَاكٌ
A streak, line, ripple, or patterned row in a surface or material.
Used of ridges or ripples in sand and water, wavy forms in crisp hair, streaks in a helmet or mountain, and rows or scales in a coat of mail. The specifically Quranic heavenly applications are represented under the Quranic senses above.
- Lane · entry 13359
حِبَاكٌ
The blackness of the area above a pigeon's wings.
A specialized lexical use for this marked area of the bird.
- Lane · entry 13359
حَبِيكٌ
Firmly or well bound, woven, or made; well-finished and beautiful in workmanship.
Applied especially to cloth and, in one usage, to a bow-string.
- Lane · entry 13360
حَبَّاكٌ
A sewer of book leaves, a bookbinder, an ornamental sewer, or a maker of ribbon-like lace.
A later or current occupational usage.
- Lane · entry 13362
مُحَبَّكٌ
Striped or patterned; of hair, crimped or marked with rippled forms.
Used of a garment and of hair whose texture appears wavy or streaked.
- Lane · entry 13363
مَحْبُوكٌ
Well-knit, firm, or compact in bodily make; strong and well-built.
Applied especially to a horse or other beast, including one with an even, high back and rump.
- Lane · entry 13364
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane records several variant readings for the Quranic expression; the displayed headword follows the QAC lemma حُبُك, while the supplied occurrence is its definite genitive form حُبُكِ. The Quranic interpretation correspondingly includes both heavenly pathways or patterns and beautiful construction.