Quranic root
حسس
ḥ · s · s
The root has two principal orientations: overcoming or making something cease, including by killing, and the sensed or heard response associated with pain and perception.
From sensory contact it develops meanings of perceiving, knowing, sound, and felt pain; from causing a thing's sensed activity to cease it develops killing, destruction, depletion, and falling away. Related extensions include compassion toward another and sensitivity to news or objects.
- Maqāyīs · row 1354
- 4
- Quran-attested forms
- 4
- Quran senses
- 6
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
حَسَّ
ḥassa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To kill, slaughter, or utterly destroy.
In the Quranic construction, the object is killed by a decisive or extirpating action. The underlying image is making the object's sensed activity cease; this does not require translating the verb as merely making a sound stop.
- Lane · entry 14388
- Mufradāt · row 320
Selected Quran examples
Quran 3:152word 6
“you were killing them”
أَحَسَّ
ʾaḥassa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- Quran occurrences
- 3 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 perceive, become aware of, or find something through the senses; hence to see or recognize it as perceptible.
The verb may be transitive directly or occur with بِ. Quranic uses include recognizing evident disbelief, perceiving an impending punishment, and finding or seeing whether anyone remains.
- Lane · entry 14390
- Mufradāt · row 320
Selected Quran examples
تَحَسَّسَ
taḥassasa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form V
- Form
- V
- 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.
To seek information about something or someone; to inquire after news, often repeatedly.
The construction may be used for listening closely, investigating, or asking about a person or report. In the classical contrast with تجسّس, it is associated with seeking information for a good purpose, though the Quranic construction is stated neutrally as inquiry.
- Lane · entry 14391
Selected Quran examples
Quran 12:87word 3
“and inquire”
حَسِيس
ḥasīs
- 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.
A faint or low sound, or a perceptible movement; in Quranic usage, the barely audible sound of Hell.
The word can refer to a sound by which something is perceived or to movement passing nearby. The supplied Quranic usage supports the sound-or-movement interpretation without requiring a choice between those two closely related nuances.
- Lane · entry 14396
- Mufradāt · row 320
Selected Quran examples
Quran 21:102word 3
“(the) slightest sound of it”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 3:52أَحَسَّperceived
- 3:152تَحُسُّونَهُمyou were killing them
- 12:87فَتَحَسَّسُوا۟and inquire
- 19:98تُحِسُّyou perceive
- 21:12أَحَسُّوا۟they perceived
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 26 Classical meanings
حَسَّ
To perceive or understand something through a sense.
This is the non-Quranic sensory-perception use of the simple verb, distinct from its Quran-attested killing use.
- Mufradāt · row 320
حَسَّ لَهُ
To feel tenderness, compassion, or pity for someone.
The construction with لَهُ expresses sympathetic feeling, sometimes explained as lamenting for the person.
- Lane · entry 14388
حَسَّهُمْ
To trample people underfoot and treat them with contempt.
This is a figurative extension of overpowering or crushing another.
- Lane · entry 14388
حَسَّ
To consume or damage vegetation; said of locusts eating herbage and of cold nipping, shrivelling, or blasting it.
The subject and object vary according to the construction: locusts consume herbage, while cold damages it.
- Lane · entry 14388
حَسَّ الدَّابَّةَ
To curry an animal and remove dust from its coat with a currycomb.
This is a specialized transitive use referring to grooming an animal.
- Lane · entry 14388
أَحَسَّ
To think, opine, or regard information as known or certain.
This broader cognitive use includes being certain about news; it is distinct from the Quran-attested sensory-perception use.
- Lane · entry 14390
اِنْحَسَّ
To come out, fall off, become eradicated or displaced, or fall away piece by piece.
Used of teeth, hair, camel fur, and similar things that detach or scatter progressively; the entry also records breaking into pieces.
- Lane · entry 14392
حِسٌّ
A sense or faculty of sensation.
It may denote a sensory faculty and can occur in the expression الحِسُّ المُشْتَرَكُ, the common sense.
- Lane · entry 14396
حِسٌّ
A pain or felt onset, especially the pain associated with childbirth or the first touch of fever.
The childbirth use concerns pain during or after delivery; the fever use concerns its initial felt attack.
- Lane · entry 14396
حِسٌّ
Cold that nips, shrivels, or blights herbage.
This is the nominal description of the damaging action of cold on vegetation.
- Lane · entry 14396
حَسَاسٌ
Perception through any of the senses.
It can occur in expressions meaning that someone or something is no longer perceptible.
- Lane · entry 14397
سَنَةٌ حَسُوسٌ
A year of severe sterility or drought, with little good fortune or one that consumes everything.
The adjective characterizes a highly unproductive or destructive year.
- Lane · entry 14399
حَسِيسٌ
Slain or killed.
This is a classical participial use distinct from the Quranic sound noun.
- Lane · entry 14400
حِسِّيٌّ
Related to sense; sensible or perceptible by the senses.
The term is used in opposition to مَعْنَوِيٌّ, the non-sensible or abstract.
- Lane · entry 14401
حَسَّاسٌ
Highly perceptive or sensitive; one who has strong perception or extensive knowledge of news.
The word may be adjectival for a person or substantival for the sensitive faculty.
- Lane · entry 14402
حَاسُوسٌ
One who searches for news or tidings.
The term is compared with جاسوس; the classical distinction associates حاسوس with seeking information in a good cause.
- Lane · entry 14403
حَاسُوسٌ
Unfortunate or unlucky.
This adjectival use is applied to a person and is distinct from the information-seeking noun.
- Lane · entry 14403
حَاسَّةٌ
A sense, sensory faculty, or sense organ; especially one of the five senses.
It can also describe a felt sense of kinship or relationship by extension.
- Lane · entry 14404
حَاسَّةٌ
A destructive force that consumes, injures, or removes vegetation and the like.
Examples include cold, hail, wind, locusts, and grazing beasts; the feminine ending may convey intensiveness.
- Lane · entry 14404
مَحَسَّةٌ
A cause of nipping, shrinking, shrivelling, or blasting herbage.
The supplied example specifically identifies cold as such a cause.
- Lane · entry 14405
مِحَسَّةٌ
A currycomb, an iron instrument with teeth used for grooming an animal.
This is the instrument noun corresponding to the specialized grooming verb.
- Lane · entry 14406
مَحْسُوسٌ
Perceived by the senses; a sensible object or something perceptible.
As a noun it can mean an object of sense. A conventional expression also applies it to the perceptible tract of the stars in the sky.
- Lane · entry 14407
أَرْضٌ مَحْسُوسَةٌ
Land ravaged or stripped by locusts.
This is a figurative or specialized passive-participial description of land affected by the consuming action.
- Lane · entry 14407
حَسْحَسَ
To place meat on the embers for cooking.
The cited expression describes putting meat from a slaughtered animal onto the fire.
- Maqāyīs · row 1354
حَسْحَاسٌ
A generous person who drives away hunger through generosity.
This is an archaic laudatory epithet.
- Maqāyīs · row 1354
حُسَاسٌ
Bad temper or ill nature; also ill omen.
The vocalized form is kept distinct from حَسَاسٌ, perception, and حَسَّاسٌ, highly perceptive.
- Mufradāt · row 320
- Maqāyīs · row 1354
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The three verbal public headwords are normalized to Classical Arabic perfect-tense citation forms rather than copied from the supplied imperfect or imperative Quran forms.
The Quranic حسيس usage supports both a faint sound and a perceptible movement interpretation; these closely related nuances are retained within one sense.
Examples use only QAC-supplied modern verse and word locations; historical citation notation in the lexical evidence is not converted into modern locations.