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Quranic root

حول

ḥ · w · l

The root centers on movement in a circuit or transition from one state, place, or relation to another.

From turning and changing come meanings of intervening or separating, spatial surroundings, the yearly cycle, transfer, and the resourceful means by which an objective is reached.

  • Maqāyīs · row 1480
  • Mufradāt · row 371
5
Quran-attested forms
7
Quran senses
25
Quran occurrences

Forms in the Quran

The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.

حَالَ

ḥāla

Part of speech
Verb · Form I
Form
I
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.

  1. To intervene or come between, creating a separation or barrier.

    Used in Quranic constructions with بَيْنَ for something that separates two persons, things, or an inner relation. The intervention may be understood as turning a person away from a desired course.

    • Lane · entry 16155
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 8:24word 14

    comes

    Quran 11:43word 18

    And came

    Quran 34:54word 1

    And a barrier will be placed

حَوْل

ḥawl

Part of speech
Noun · spatial and temporal uses
Quran occurrences
17 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.

  1. The area around, vicinity, or surroundings of something.

    Used spatially, often in an adverbial construction with a following pronoun or noun, meaning around or in the environs of it.

    • Lane · entry 16165
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 3:159word 14

    around you

    Quran 17:1word 14

    its surroundings

  2. A year or annual period.

    Used for the completed yearly cycle and for a specified period of a year or years, as in حَوْلَيْنِ, two years.

    • Lane · entry 16165
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 2:233word 4

    (for) two years

    Quran 2:240word 10

    the year

حِوَل

ḥiwal

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.

  1. Removal or change from one place to another; departure or escape.

    In لَا يَبْغُونَ عَنْهَا حِوَلًا, it denotes not seeking removal from the abode; it is also explained as not seeking an evasion or way of escape from it.

    • Lane · entry 16169
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 18:108word 6

    any transfer

حِيلَة

ḥīlah

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.

  1. A means, plan, expedient, or artful device for attaining an objective.

    May involve concealed or subtle management, especially a way of escaping an unwanted situation or accomplishing what is sought.

    • Lane · entry 16173
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 4:98word 9

    plan

تَحْوِيل

taḥwīl

Part of speech
Verbal noun
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.

  1. Alteration or changing from one state, condition, or established course to another.

    Used for a change in a state, condition, or customary order; the Quranic examples concern the absence of alteration in a divine way or decree.

    • Lane · entry 16156
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 17:77word 11

    any alteration

    Quran 35:43word 26

    any alteration

  2. Transfer or removal of something from one place, recipient, or position to another.

    Used transitively for shifting or transferring an object, benefit, or circumstance elsewhere.

    • Lane · entry 16156
    • Mufradāt · row 371
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 17:56word 13

    (to) transfer (it)

Occurrences in the Quran

Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.

  • 2:17حَوْلَهُۥ(was) around him
  • 2:233حَوْلَيْنِ(for) two years
  • 2:240ٱلْحَوْلِthe year
  • 3:159حَوْلِكَ ۖaround you
  • 4:98حِيلَةًۭplan
View all 25 occurrences

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 84 Classical meanings
  • حَالَ

    To become altered, changed, shifted, or transferred from a prior state, direction, or place.

    Includes change in constitution, condition, straightness, colour, or position; it may describe something becoming crooked or moving away from its place.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَالَ

    To use an artful device or contrivance to manage a matter.

    An intransitive use equated with احتال and associated with seeking a way through a difficulty.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَالَ

    To leap onto and seat oneself firmly on a horse or riding animal.

    Used with the back or middle of the riding animal.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَالَ

    For a morning draught and an evening draught to become one.

    An idiom for people suffering drought and scarcity of milk.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَالَ

    For a year to pass, revolve, or become complete.

    May be said of a year passing over a person, house, food, or other thing; بِالْمَكَانِ can mean remaining in a place for a year or a long period.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَالَ

    For a female animal or woman not to conceive or become pregnant.

    Also used of a palm that bears one year and not the next, or fails to bear after fertilization.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَالَ

    To pour or flow forth.

    A use applied to a thing that pours out or forth.

    • Lane · entry 16155
  • حَوِلَ

    For an eye to squint or have its black turned toward an angle of the eye.

    The exact anatomical description varies among authorities; the common sense is a turned or squinting eye.

    • Lane · entry 16155
    • Lane · entry 16166
  • حَوَّلَ

    To turn an affair over in the mind and manage it by considering its possible results.

    Also used of changing one's opinion concerning an affair.

    • Lane · entry 16156
  • حَوَّلَ

    To transfer or transcribe the contents of a book or writing to another copy without destroying the original.

    A specialized use of transferring written contents.

    • Lane · entry 16156
  • حَوَّلَ

    To declare or make something absurd, inconsistent, or impossible.

    Used of an utterance or proposition judged to be مُحَال.

    • Lane · entry 16156
  • حَوَّلَ

    For a she-camel to fail to conceive after being covered.

    A specialized animal-breeding use, equated with the corresponding Form I expression.

    • Lane · entry 16156
  • حَاوَلَ

    To desire, seek, or endeavor to obtain something, often by resourceful management.

    The object may be pursued through an artful device, deliberation, or an attempt to induce someone to act.

    • Lane · entry 16157
  • حَاوَلَ

    To look sharply or intently at someone.

    A specialized use of directing one's sight toward the person observed.

    • Lane · entry 16157
  • أَحَالَ

    To leave abundance and turn toward hardship or scarcity.

    Preserved in a proverb about withdrawing from a meadow and setting off.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To set upon, aim at, or attack someone with a whip, spear, or similar instrument.

    May describe directing an attack or making death depend on the blows.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To reckon or esteem someone weak.

    A transitive evaluative use.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    For night to pour over the earth or come on.

    An intransitive temporal use.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    For food or another thing to make someone fat.

    Used with the person affected by the food or substance.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To do or say what is absurd, inconsistent, or impossible.

    Includes making speech absurd or self-contradictory.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    For a man's camels to pass a year without conceiving.

    Used of covered she-camels that do not become pregnant.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To refer a creditor or affair to another person by transferring responsibility for a debt or task.

    In debt law, the debtor directs the creditor to another debtor or responsible party.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To pour water out or upon something, sometimes while turning over the vessel.

    Used of pouring from a bucket or directing water onto an object.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To make a year pass over someone or something, or to make the year complete.

    A causative temporal use.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To cause a man's she-camels to pass a year without becoming pregnant.

    A causative breeding expression distinct from the intransitive failure to conceive.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To make an eye squint or become turned in its orientation.

    A causative anatomical use.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To make speech absurd, inconsistent, or self-contradictory.

    Applied specifically to an utterance or statement.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • أَحَالَ

    To employ evasions, shifts, or artful contrivances in managing a matter.

    Preserved in expressions praising or reproaching a person's resourcefulness and evasions.

    • Lane · entry 16158
  • تَحَوَّلَ

    To shift, move, depart, or transfer oneself from one place or state to another.

    Includes turning into a new condition or direction; the lexical core is movement or transition.

    • Lane · entry 16159
  • تَحَوَّلَ

    To carry a bundle on one's back.

    Also used when something is put into a cloak or garment and carried.

    • Lane · entry 16159
  • تَحَوَّلَ

    To seek to place oneself in a condition ready or willing to accept admonition.

    A specialized reflexive use concerning receptivity to advice.

    • Lane · entry 16159
  • اِحْتَالَ

    To be referred to another person for payment through a transfer of debt responsibility.

    A legal debt-transfer construction derived from الحوالة.

    • Lane · entry 16160
  • اِحْتَالَ

    To practise an evasion, stratagem, trick, or subtle device to achieve or avoid something.

    May describe ingenuity or cunning in managing affairs, whether blameworthy or merely skillful.

    • Lane · entry 16160
  • اِحْتَالَ

    To encompass or surround someone, placing him in the midst of a group.

    A distinct intransitive use from the artifice sense.

    • Lane · entry 16160
  • اِسْتَحَالَ

    For speech or a thing to become absurd, impossible, or inconsistent.

    May mean becoming impossible in reality or being turned from its proper manner.

    • Lane · entry 16162
  • اِسْتَحَالَ

    To watch a person or cloud formation to see whether it moves or changes.

    A transitive observational use expressing expectation of movement.

    • Lane · entry 16162
  • اِحْوَالَّتْ

    For land to become green and its herbage to stand strong and erect.

    A figurative or environmental specialization of becoming changed.

    • Lane · entry 16163
  • حَال

    The state, condition, case, or circumstance of a person or thing.

    Includes a changing condition in the soul, body, or possessions; in grammar, it can denote a state accompanying the subject or object, and in logic a transient quality.

    • Lane · entry 16164
    • Lane · entry 16170
  • حَال

    A load, burden, bundle, or bundle of clothing carried on the back.

    The sense extends to a carrying bundle or burden.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    A garment or piece of cloth used to gather and carry dry herbage.

    A specialized garment sense.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    A child's go-cart used for practising walking.

    A small cart-like object.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    The part or middle of a horse's back bearing the saddle-cloth.

    Refers to the central back or saddle-bearing portion of a horse.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    Black, fetid mud or soft earth.

    The same headword is also reported for related substances such as stinking flesh, hot ashes, acacia leaves gathered in cloth, and milk; these are lexicalized material uses rather than a general meaning of mud.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    Weakness or softness.

    A figurative extension from soft earth.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    Stinking flesh-meat.

    A specialized material noun use.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    Hot ashes.

    A specialized material noun use.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    Acacia leaves beaten or shaken into a garment or cloth.

    A specialized gathered-material use.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    Milk.

    A separately reported lexical use.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَال

    A wife.

    A dialectal use attributed to Hudhayl.

    • Lane · entry 16164
  • حَوْل

    Strength, power, ability, or force.

    The sense occurs in expressions such as لا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله; it may also be interpreted as capacity for motion or turning.

    • Lane · entry 16165
    • Lane · entry 16171
  • حِوَل

    A furrow or trench in which palm trees are planted in a row.

    An agricultural technical use.

    • Lane · entry 16169
  • حُولَة

    A wonder or wonderful thing; by extension, wonders.

    The plural and singular forms vary in the transmitted lexical reports.

    • Lane · entry 16172
  • حُولَة

    An evil, abominable, or calamitous event.

    May be used as an epithet for something exceptionally disastrous.

    • Lane · entry 16172
  • حِيلَة

    The science of devices or mechanics.

    A technical expression, علم الحيل.

    • Lane · entry 16173
  • حَوْلِيّ

    A yearling or something in its first year.

    Applied to solid-hoofed animals, camels, plants, food, and a boy; the exact age extension varies by report.

    • Lane · entry 16175
  • حُوَلَاء

    The membrane or fluid-filled sac that comes out with or around a newborn.

    Especially the fetal membrane of a she-camel, analogous to the woman's placenta; the term is also applied to a woman.

    • Lane · entry 16177
  • حُوَلَاء

    Abundance of water and green herbage, or land covered with dark green growth.

    A figurative use in comparisons with the fetal membrane and its contents.

    • Lane · entry 16177
  • حَوَال

    The changing or varying of time or fortune.

    A noun of temporal vicissitude.

    • Lane · entry 16181
  • حِيَال

    The front, opposite side, or place facing something.

    Used as an adverb or noun meaning in front of, opposite, or facing.

    • Lane · entry 16183
  • حِيَال

    Independently or separately, by itself.

    Used in the expression عَلَى حِيَالِهِ.

    • Lane · entry 16183
  • حِيَال

    A cord tied between a camel's belly-girth and hind-girth to keep the latter from moving against the sheath.

    A specialized piece of camel equipment.

    • Lane · entry 16183
  • حَوِيل

    One who is responsible or answerable.

    A personal noun of responsibility.

    • Lane · entry 16184
  • حَوِيل

    A witness.

    A separately reported nominal use.

    • Lane · entry 16184
  • حَوِيل

    Desire or seeking, especially seeking by artful management to attain an object.

    A noun associated with حَاوَلَ.

    • Lane · entry 16184
  • حَوَالَة

    The diversion of one river or rivulet into another.

    An agricultural or hydraulic technical use.

    • Lane · entry 16185
  • حَوَالَة

    The transfer of a debt or claim by shifting responsibility from one person to another.

    A legal and financial term for referral of a creditor or payment obligation.

    • Lane · entry 16185
  • حَوَالَة

    Responsibility or accountability.

    A related nominal use of being answerable for an obligation.

    • Lane · entry 16185
  • حُوَّل

    A person skilled, experienced, or cunning in managing affairs.

    May imply extensive resourcefulness, subtlety, or skill in devising means.

    • Lane · entry 16187
  • حَائِل

    Something altered, changing, or turned, especially becoming black or changed in colour.

    Applied to a bone or other thing that has changed.

    • Lane · entry 16191
  • حَائِل

    A female animal or woman that does not conceive or become pregnant.

    Especially a she-camel after being covered; also applied to a palm that bears intermittently.

    • Lane · entry 16191
  • حَائِل

    A female camel young at the time of birth.

    The corresponding male is called سَقْب.

    • Lane · entry 16191
  • حَائِل

    A thing intervening as a separation, partition, fence, barrier, or obstacle between two things.

    A nominal counterpart of the separating construction, with the lexical identity of حَائِل preserved.

    • Lane · entry 16191
  • أَحْوَل

    Crooked, wry, or inclining to one side.

    Preserved in a proverb describing something that does not proceed straight.

    • Lane · entry 16193
  • تَحَاوِيل

    Alternating the cultivation of land by leaving it unsown one year and sowing it another.

    An agricultural practice intended to strengthen the land.

    • Lane · entry 16195
  • مُحِيل

    A female that bears a male one year and a female the next, or bears a child of the opposite sex successively.

    Applied to a woman or she-camel; the report is qualified in the source as an alternative lexical attribution.

    • Lane · entry 16199
  • مَحَالَة

    A machine, wheel, or large pulley used in drawing water.

    A technical water-drawing implement, with variant descriptions of its exact construction.

    • Lane · entry 16200
  • مَحَالَة

    The vertebrae, or a vertebra.

    The number and whether the term is collective or singular vary in the lexical reports.

    • Lane · entry 16200
  • مَحَالَة

    The middle of the back.

    A bodily or anatomical use.

    • Lane · entry 16200
  • مِحْوَال

    A man who says much that is absurd or self-contradictory.

    An agent noun referring to recurrent absurd speech.

    • Lane · entry 16203
  • مُحْتَال

    Land upon which rain has not fallen.

    A tropical or figurative use reported for the adjective.

    • Lane · entry 16204
  • مُتَحَوَّل

    A place to which one shifts, removes, or becomes transferred.

    A nominal place sense distinct from the participial and infinitival grammatical uses.

    • Lane · entry 16205
  • مُسْتَحَالَة

    Crooked or uneven, as of a leg, bow, or ground.

    Applied to a leg crooked in its shank, a bow bent from straightness, or uneven land.

    • Lane · entry 16207
  • مُسْتَحَالَة

    Land left unsown or uncultivated for a year or more.

    An agricultural specialization of land that has undergone a change of condition.

    • Lane · entry 16207
  • مُسْتَحِيل

    Full.

    A separately reported lexical use in addition to the better-known sense impossible.

    • Lane · entry 16208

Cautions

Points that affect how this root should be read.

  • The two QAC groups for حَوْل are merged because one is tagged nominal and the other spatial/temporal; their Quranic uses remain represented under the same public headword.

  • حِوَلًا in 18:108 supports removal or change of place, with an explicitly reported alternative interpretation of seeking an evasion; it should not be reduced to the contextual gloss “transfer” alone.