Quranic root
حمم
ḥ · m · m
The root develops several distinct semantic branches: blackness, intense heat, nearness or presence, a kind of animal sound, and aiming or directing oneself toward something.
The lexical evidence connects blackness with charcoal, smoke, and dark coloration; heat with hot water, fever, sweat, and melting; nearness with approaching or becoming imminent; sound with the horse's yearning cry; and aiming with directing oneself toward an object. These branches are treated as related root developments, not as meanings of every derived form.
- Maqāyīs · row 1442
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 4
- Quran senses
- 21
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
حَمِيم
ḥamīm
- Part of speech
- Noun / Adjective
- Quran occurrences
- 20 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.
Very hot or scalding water.
Used substantivally for hot water and adjectivally in descriptions of it; Quranic contexts include drinking, pouring, mixing, and serving such water.
- Lane · entry 15559
- Mufradāt · row 355
Selected Quran examples
Quran 22:19word 17
“[the] scalding water”
Quran 78:25word 2
“scalding water”
An intimate friend or close, devoted relation.
Used for a person bound by intimate affection or concern; in Quranic constructions it denotes the close friend or relation whose presence or intercession would ordinarily be expected.
- Lane · entry 15559
- Mufradāt · row 355
Selected Quran examples
Quran 26:101word 3
“close”
Quran 70:10word 3
“a friend”
يَحْمُوم
yaḥmūm
- Part of speech
- Noun
- 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.
Black or intensely dark smoke.
A Quranic noun for the smoke described as forming the dark atmosphere of the punishment scene.
- Lane · entry 15580
- Mufradāt · row 355
Selected Quran examples
Quran 56:43word 3
“black smoke”
A dark smoke shade or canopy over the people of Hell.
A Quran-specific interpretation of the expression involving يَحْمُوم; it describes the smoke by its covering or shading function rather than merely naming its substance.
- Lane · entry 15580
- Mufradāt · row 355
Selected Quran examples
Quran 56:43word 3
“black smoke”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 6:70حَمِيمٍۢboiling water
- 10:4حَمِيمٍۢboiling fluids
- 22:19ٱلْحَمِيمُ[the] scalding water
- 26:101حَمِيمٍۢclose
- 37:67حَمِيمٍۢboiling water
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 83 Classical meanings
حَمَّ
To become hot, said especially of water.
Intransitive Form I usage.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To become black, especially through the effect of heat; live coals may become charcoal or ashes.
A blackening or darkening development distinct from the transitive act of blackening another object.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To heat something with fire, including water or an oven.
Transitive usage; with an oven it can include kindling or fully fueling it.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To melt animal fat.
Used of melting the fat of a sheep's tail or a piece of fat.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To become fevered or affected by fever.
Used of a person and, in a reported usage, of a camel.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To hasten an animal's departure.
Attested specifically of hastening the going or departure of a camel.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To decree or appoint; to be decreed or appointed.
Used of God decreeing something for someone, or of an event or thing being appointed.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّ
To aim at or direct oneself toward an object.
The construction حَمَّ حَمَّهُ is explained as equivalent to قصد قصده.
- Lane · entry 15538
حَمَّمَ
To blacken a person's face with charcoal.
Form II transitive usage.
- Lane · entry 15539
حَمَّمَ
For dark or visible growth to appear after an earlier stage: hair, a beard, plumage, or herbage to emerge or show its dark color.
Used in intransitive constructions of renewed hair, a young man's beard, a young bird's plumage, or vegetation appearing.
- Lane · entry 15539
حَمَّمَ
To give a divorced wife a gift or clothing after the divorce.
A specialized doubly transitive usage, including giving her a slave or another specified object.
- Lane · entry 15539
حَامَّ
To approach or draw near to someone or something.
Form III reciprocal or transitive usage.
- Lane · entry 15540
حَامَّ
To seek or demand something from someone.
A reported Form III usage for seeking to obtain or requesting an object from another person.
- Lane · entry 15540
أَحَمَّ
To wash someone, or oneself, with water, especially hot water.
The evidence reports disagreement over whether self-washing in this construction uses hot or cold water.
- Lane · entry 15541
أَحَمَّ
To cause someone to have a fever.
Causative Form IV usage.
- Lane · entry 15541
أَحَمَّ
To make someone anxious, distressed, perplexed, fearful, or grief-stricken.
Used of an affair, event, or circumstance affecting a person.
- Lane · entry 15541
أَحَمَّ
To make something black.
Causative Form IV usage.
- Lane · entry 15541
أَحَمَّ
To cause something to draw near or approach.
Transitive causative usage.
- Lane · entry 15541
أَحَمَّ
For land to have fever in it, or much fever in it.
An intransitive description of a fever-ridden region.
- Lane · entry 15541
أَحَمَّ
To draw near, approach, or become imminent.
Used of a need, a person's arrival, a departure, or the time of an event becoming present.
- Lane · entry 15541
اِحْتَمَّ
To become anxious, distressed, or grief-stricken, especially at night and sometimes sleepless.
Lane distinguishes this reported usage from اِهْتَمَّ partly by its association with night or sleeplessness.
- Lane · entry 15543
اِحْتَمَّ
To become sharp, hasty, or irascible toward someone.
A separate interpersonal usage.
- Lane · entry 15543
اِسْتَحَمَّ
To wash oneself, primarily with hot water and by extension with water generally.
The hot-water sense is described as the primary signification; frequent usage extends it to washing with any water.
- Lane · entry 15544
اِسْتَحَمَّ
To enter a hot bath.
Reported as a usage whose authority is not firmly established.
- Lane · entry 15544
اِسْتَحَمَّ
To sweat.
Used of a person, horse, or similar animal.
- Lane · entry 15544
حَمْحَمَ
To utter a soft, yearning cry or neigh.
Used of a horse desiring fodder or seeking its master's attention, and of a bull yearning to mount a cow.
- Lane · entry 15546
حَمٌّ
The vehemence or intenseness of heat, especially the heat of a summer midday.
A noun for extreme heat or its most intense period.
- Lane · entry 15550
حَمٌّ
The main or chief part of a thing.
Also used in the expression for the chief intensity of heat.
- Lane · entry 15550
حَمٌّ
The residue left after the fat of a tail, hump, or other fatty part has been melted.
A noun for the remaining solid or spent portion of melted fat.
- Lane · entry 15550
حَمٌّ
Property, livestock, goods, commodities, or household equipment.
A collective or broad material-property usage.
- Lane · entry 15550
حَمٌّ
In an idiom, the sole object occupying a person's mind.
In مَا لَهُ حَمٌّ وَلَا سَمٌّ, the word can mean a person's intended concern or object; the same expression is also explained as meaning neither little nor much.
- Lane · entry 15550
حَمٌّ
In an idiom, a means or way of separating oneself from or avoiding something.
In مَالِي مِنْهُ حَمٌّ, it denotes no means of escape or separation.
- Lane · entry 15550
حَمَّةٌ
A hot spring used by the sick in seeking a cure.
The word is also used in a proverbial comparison for a source to which distant people resort.
- Lane · entry 15552
حُمَّةٌ
The vehemence or main force of two armies meeting.
A specialized description of the force of an encounter.
- Lane · entry 15553
حُمَّةٌ
The sharpness of a spearhead.
A technical object-specific usage.
- Lane · entry 15553
حُمَّةٌ
The venom or poison of a scorpion.
A dialectal or variant form is reported in the evidence.
- Lane · entry 15553
حُمَّةٌ
A decreed separation or death; a destined term.
Includes the conventional expression حِمَامُ الْمَوْتِ for the appointed death.
- Lane · entry 15553
حُمَّةٌ
Blackness, including the dark sediment remaining in clarified butter or similar substances.
The color sense extends to a black or dark residue at the bottom of a container.
- Lane · entry 15553
حُمَّةٌ
A beloved or especially dear person.
In the expression حُمَّةُ نَفْسِي, it is explained as equivalent to حُبَّةُ نَفْسِي; the etymological relation is disputed.
- Lane · entry 15553
حِمَّةٌ
Death or the decreed term of life.
A noun with a plural in حِمَمٌ.
- Lane · entry 15554
حُمَمٌ
Charcoal, ashes, burnt wood, or other matter consumed by fire; also a live coal by extension.
The evidence includes cold or crumbling charcoal and the singular form used figuratively for live coals.
- Lane · entry 15555
حُمَمٌ
Blackness of complexion; figuratively, a black girl or female slave.
An explicitly marked figurative extension from charcoal and blackness.
- Lane · entry 15555
حَمَامٌ
Pigeons or related cooing, often collared birds, wild or domestic depending on usage.
The scope varies among authorities from pigeons generally to a wider class of birds that drink continuously and coo.
- Lane · entry 15556
حُمَامٌ
A fever or fever-like disease of camels and other animals.
A specialized animal-disease term; one reported expression applies it to a disease affecting men as well.
- Lane · entry 15557
حُمَامٌ
A noble chief or lord.
One authority considers this possibly derived from هُمَامٌ.
- Lane · entry 15557
حَمِيم
The season or period of vehement summer heat.
It may denote the most intense summer heat or a traditional period marked by the rising of certain stars.
- Lane · entry 15559
حَمِيم
Live coals used for fumigation.
A nominal usage distinct from the hot-water sense.
- Lane · entry 15559
حَمِيم
According to one reported usage, cold water.
This is a contrary lexical attribution alongside the usual hot-water meaning, not a Quranic sense.
- Lane · entry 15559
حَمِيم
Rain that falls during or after a period of vehement heat.
Explained as rain associated with hot summer ground or air.
- Lane · entry 15559
حَمِيم
Sweat, especially the sweat of a horse by extension.
An explicitly marked figurative usage related to heat and bathing.
- Lane · entry 15559
حَمِيم
One who devotes himself to attaining an object of need.
Used with a need or desired object, emphasizing solicitous effort rather than friendship.
- Lane · entry 15559
حَمَامَةٌ
A woman, especially in a figurative usage, a beautiful woman.
The figurative extension is explicitly marked as tropical.
- Lane · entry 15560
حَمَامَةٌ
The middle of the breast or chest; the breast or chest protuberance of a horse or camel.
An anatomical and animal-body term covering the listed related locations.
- Lane · entry 15560
حَمَامَةٌ
The sheave of a bucket pulley.
A technical object term.
- Lane · entry 15560
حَمَامَةٌ
The ring of a door.
A technical object term.
- Lane · entry 15560
حَمَامَةٌ
The clean court of a palace or similar building.
A built-environment term.
- Lane · entry 15560
حَمِيمَةٌ
Heated milk.
A nominal usage distinct from the general adjective or noun حَمِيم.
- Lane · entry 15561
حَمِيمَةٌ
The choice, best, or most highly valued livestock or property.
Used especially of cattle, camels, or other valuable possessions; the usage is marked as figurative.
- Lane · entry 15561
حُمَيْمَةٌ
A live coal; according to another report, redness.
The evidence records both closely related lexical explanations.
- Lane · entry 15562
حَمَامِيٌّ
One who keeps and flies pigeons, including sending them as carriers.
A profession or activity-based derivative of حَمَام.
- Lane · entry 15564
حُمَّى
Fever, a disease in which the body becomes hot.
A feminine noun associated lexically with excessive heat, sweat, or the imagery of a death-sign.
- Lane · entry 15565
حَمَّامٌ
A hot bath or bathhouse.
The word may denote the structure or the bathing facility itself.
- Lane · entry 15567
حَمَّامِيٌّ
The owner or keeper of a bathhouse.
A professional derivative of حَمَّام.
- Lane · entry 15568
حَامَّةٌ
A person's special family, close relations, children, or intimate familiars.
Contrasted with the عامّة, the common people.
- Lane · entry 15571
حَامَّةٌ
The generality or entirety of people.
A reported usage equivalent to عامّة; the evidence indicates that this interpretation may arise from a disputed reading or misunderstanding.
- Lane · entry 15571
حٰمٓ
A designation for the Quran chapters beginning with the disconnected letters حٰمٓ.
The expression refers collectively to the chapters traditionally called the Ḥāmīm chapters; the cited Lane notation is retained as a historical reference, not converted into an unverified modern location.
- Lane · entry 15572
حٰمٓ
A liturgical expression variously interpreted as a divine name, an oath, an abbreviation, or a statement that what is to occur has been decreed.
These are reported interpretations of the disconnected letters, not a single uncontested lexical definition.
- Lane · entry 15572
أَحَمُّ
Black or intensely black; in one reported attribution, the word may also be used for white.
Applied to people, eyes, animals, night, and other objects; the contrary white sense is explicitly reported as an attributed variant.
- Lane · entry 15573
حَمَّاءُ
The anus of a human being.
A feminine derivative associated with the preceding color term.
- Lane · entry 15573
أَحَمُّ
An arrow furnished with its feathers and head.
A technical archery term, equivalent to قِدْحٌ in the cited evidence.
- Lane · entry 15573
حَمَّاءُ
A lip or gum of a dark color between blackness and blackish red.
Used adjectivally of the color of a lip or gum.
- Lane · entry 15573
أَحَمُّ
A most particular, special, or beloved friend or person.
An intensive relational adjective connected in the evidence with حَمِيم and حَامَّة.
- Lane · entry 15573
مِحَمٌّ
A small copper or brass vessel with a narrow neck for heating water.
A vessel term equivalent to a small قُمْقُمَة.
- Lane · entry 15575
مَحَمَّةٌ
A cause of fever, or something whose consumption brings on fever.
Food is given as an example of the cause.
- Lane · entry 15576
مَحَمَّةٌ
Land in which fever occurs, or in which there is much fever.
A descriptive adjective for a fever-ridden region.
- Lane · entry 15576
مَحْمُومٌ
Fevered or affected with fever.
A passive participial adjective applied primarily to a person.
- Lane · entry 15577
مَحْمُومٌ
Applied to water in a specialized lexical usage.
The evidence records this application without specifying a separate physical property beyond the cited comparison.
- Lane · entry 15577
مَحْمُومٌ
Decreed or appointed.
A passive participial usage from the decree branch of the root.
- Lane · entry 15577
مُحَامٌّ
Steadfastly, firmly, or continuously adhering to an affair.
Used with عَلَى أَمْرٍ or a comparable construction.
- Lane · entry 15578
مُسْتَحَمٌّ
A place where one washes with hot water.
A place noun associated with bathing.
- Lane · entry 15579
يَحْمُوم
A black mountain, or a particular black mountain in Hell.
A Classical usage distinct from the Quranic smoke sense.
- Lane · entry 15580
يَحْمُوم
A bird named for the blackness of its wings.
A specialized zoological usage.
- Lane · entry 15580
يَحْمُوم
A green, moist, blackish plant or herbage.
A plant descriptor combining luxuriant moisture with dark coloration.
- Lane · entry 15580
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
حَمِيم has two Quran-attested branches: scalding water and an intimate friend or close relation; grammatical tagging varies between noun and adjective.
The Classical evidence records contrary or disputed usages for حَمِيم meaning cold water and أَحَمُّ meaning white; these are kept outside the Quranic senses.
The shade or canopy interpretation of يَحْمُوم is preserved as a Quran-specific lexical interpretation. Lane's historical citation notation is not treated as an independently verified modern verse location.