Quranic root
حتم
ḥ · t · m
The lexical orientation is firmness, fixing, and decisive determination, though the root analysis is explicitly uncertain and is tentatively connected with the semantic field of ح ك م.
From making an affair firm or settled, the evidence develops meanings of decree, judicial determination, necessity, and inevitability; related lexical branches also describe breaking apart and what remains as crumbs.
- Maqāyīs · row 1295
- Lane · entry 13467
- Lane · entry 13471
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- 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.
حَتْمٌ
ḥatmun
- 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 predetermined decree or judicially settled determination; in the Quranic use, an irrevocably fixed decree.
In حَتْمًا مَقْضِيًّا, the accusative noun denotes a decree decisively determined by God, with the contextual force of inevitability.
- Lane · entry 13471
- Mufradāt · row 293
Selected Quran examples
Quran 19:71word 8
“an inevitability”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 19:71حَتْمًۭاan inevitability
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 25 Classical meanings
حَتَمَ
To make firm, establish, or settle a thing or affair firmly.
Form I transitive usage.
- Lane · entry 13467
حَتَمَ
To decree, ordain, pronounce, or decide a matter judicially.
Also used with بِهِ or عَلَيْهِ in constructions of deciding or decreeing a matter.
- Lane · entry 13467
حَتَمَ
To make something necessary, requisite, or unavoidable.
With عَلَيْهِ, to make a thing or event necessary for someone to do or suffer; also used with بِهِ.
- Lane · entry 13467
تَحَتَّمَ
To make a thing necessary or unavoidable.
Form V usage.
- Lane · entry 13468
تَحَتَّمَ
To wish someone good or augur good for him.
In the construction تَحَتَّمَ لِفُلَانٍ بِخَيْرٍ.
- Lane · entry 13468
تَحَتُّمٌ
Softness, yieldingness, crumbliness, or a tendency to break easily; of food, freshness, juiciness, or moistness in that soft condition.
A nominal use describing the soft or crumbly quality of an edible thing.
- Lane · entry 13468
تَحَتَّمَ
To crumble or break into small pieces.
Used of something that breaks apart or falls into pieces.
- Lane · entry 13468
تَحَتَّمَ
To eat a soft or crumbly thing.
A transitive usage describing the eating of food soft enough to break apart in the mouth.
- Lane · entry 13468
حُتَامَةٌ
Food remaining on a table or fallen from it during eating, such as bread crumbs.
Refers to remnants or crumbs of food left after eating.
- Lane · entry 13468
- Lane · entry 13474
تَحَتَّمَ
To become cheerful, brisk, lively, or sprightly because of something.
Used with the thing that occasions the change in state.
- Lane · entry 13468
اِنْحَتَمَ
To become absolutely, decisively, or irreversibly necessary, requisite, or unavoidable.
Used of a thing, affair, or event that becomes settled as unavoidable.
- Lane · entry 13469
اِحْتَأَمَّ
To cut or cut off a thing.
A separately attested quadriliteral lexical formation.
- Lane · entry 13470
حَتْمٌ
A legal term used for qaḍāʾ, as opposed to adāʾ.
Technical legal terminology.
- Lane · entry 13471
حَتْمٌ
Necessary, requisite, or unavoidable; indissoluble or irreversible.
An adjectival or epithetic use, including in descriptions of a decree, ordinance, sentence, or judicial decision.
- Lane · entry 13471
حَتْمٌ
Death.
A transferred nominal use.
- Lane · entry 13471
حَتْمٌ
Pure, free from admixture, genuine, or true.
Used adjectivally, including of a genuine or true brother.
- Lane · entry 13471
حُتْمَةٌ
Blackness.
A nominal color term.
- Lane · entry 13472
حَتَمَةٌ
A flask broken into small pieces.
A noun for a vessel reduced to fragments.
- Lane · entry 13473
حُتُومَةٌ
Acidity, sourness, or pungency.
A taste or sensory quality.
- Lane · entry 13475
حَاتِمٌ
A judge, or one who decrees, ordains, or pronounces a judicial decision.
An agent noun associated with deciding or issuing a decree.
- Lane · entry 13476
حَاتِمٌ
A crow, including the crow associated with separation or ill omen.
The name is connected with the belief that the bird’s croaking portends separation or departure.
- Lane · entry 13476
حَاتِمٌ
Unlucky or inauspicious.
A transferred adjectival use associated with the omen-bearing crow.
- Lane · entry 13476
حَنْتَمْ
A green earthenware jar.
A noun for a jar of the specified traditional color.
- Lane · entry 13477
حَنْتَمْ
Something black.
The word is also applied to an object described by the color term أَسْوَد.
- Lane · entry 13477
أَحْتَمُ
Black.
An adjectival use applying to anything black.
- Lane · entry 13478
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The printed Lane Quran citation uses historical numbering; the modern example location 19:71:8 is taken from the independently supplied QAC occurrence, not converted from Lane’s citation.
The root-level etymological analysis is tentative in the supplied Maqāyīs evidence.