Quranic root
حسم
ḥ · s · m
The root centers on cutting something off completely and removing its remaining effect.
This core extends to physical severance, cauterization that stops bleeding, stopping disease or access, bringing a matter or people to an end, and removing a person's effect or prosperity. The Quranic use of حُسُوم also connects the idea with uninterrupted succession and destructive cutting-off.
- Maqāyīs · row 1361
- Mufradāt · row 324
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- 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.
حُسُومٌ
ḥusūmun
- Part of speech
- Adjective
- 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.
Successive, consecutive, and continuous from beginning to end.
In 69:7, it is applied to the nights and days as an adjective or adjective-like expression describing their uninterrupted succession.
- Lane · entry 14471
Selected Quran examples
Quran 69:7word 7
“(in) succession”
Cutting off an effect, report, or life, and thereby bringing it to an end or causing it to perish.
In 69:7, this is an interpretation of the wind and its destructive action: it cut off their trace or renown, or ended their lives.
- Lane · entry 14471
- Mufradāt · row 324
Ominous or destructive, removing good or prosperity from those affected.
In 69:7, the days or nights may be understood as marked by evil and as cutting off prosperity from their people.
- Lane · entry 14471
- Mufradāt · row 324
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 69:7حُسُومًۭا(in) succession
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 11 Classical meanings
حَسَمَ
To cut something off completely.
The basic transitive use, referring to complete severance.
- Lane · entry 14468
حَسَمَ
To sever a vein and cauterize it to stop the flow of blood; also, to cauterize an animal through successive operations.
A medical or veterinary construction involving cutting followed by cauterization.
- Lane · entry 14468
حَسَمَ
To stop or prevent something: to arrest a disease with a remedy, discontinue suckling or food, or prevent someone from attaining a thing.
Used for stopping a process, provision, disease, or access to an object.
- Lane · entry 14468
حَسَمَ
To cause people or things to pass away, cease, perish, or come to nothing.
A causative use describing the termination or extinction of a subject.
- Lane · entry 14468
حَسَمَ فِي العَمَلِ
To strive, labor, toil, or exert oneself in work until wearied.
A conventional construction with فِي and a work-related object.
- Lane · entry 14468
اِنْحَسَمَ
To be or become cut off.
The intransitive or quasi-passive counterpart of complete cutting-off.
- Lane · entry 14469
حُسُامٌ
A sword, especially a sharp sword; also the cutting edge of a sword or a knife.
A noun derived from the cutting function of the sword.
- Lane · entry 14470
لَيْلَةٌ حُسَامٌ
A lasting night, especially one of prolonged evil.
An idiomatic epithet for a night characterized by duration or continuing misfortune.
- Lane · entry 14470
مَحْسَمَةٌ
A cause or means of cutting off or stopping something, such as disease.
A noun of instrument or means, used for an intervention that arrests a condition.
- Lane · entry 14473
مَحْسَمَةٌ
An impediment to sexual intercourse or a means of diminishing sexual drive or seminal fluid.
A specialized use, especially in descriptions of fasting as restraining sexual activity.
- Lane · entry 14473
مَحْسُومٌ
A child whose suckling or food has been stopped; hence, a badly fed child.
A passive participial use describing deprivation of nourishment.
- Lane · entry 14474
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The sole Quran occurrence, in 69:7, supports several transmitted interpretations: uninterrupted succession, destructive cutting-off, and ominous removal of prosperity; these are kept as distinct but related Quranic senses.