Quranic root
صلصل
ṣ · l · ṣ · l
The contracted root points chiefly to two orientations: slight moisture or residual water, and sound. Its reduplicated forms especially convey repeated, resonant, or crackling sound.
The moisture branch includes moist earth, remnants of water, scattered rain, and herbage named after rain; the sound branch extends from ringing objects to dry earth and clay that produces a sound. Other lexical developments include alteration or spoilage and figurative force.
- Maqāyīs · row 2814
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 4
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
صَلْصَالٌ
ṣalṣālun
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 4 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. Dry clay that makes a ringing or crackling sound, especially clay not yet baked into pottery.
Used in the Quranic descriptions of the material from which the human being was created. The sound is associated with the clay's dryness or composition with sand.
- Lane · entry 26318
- Lane · entry 26295
Selected Quran examples
2. Clay understood as black mud altered in odor.
A reported interpretation of the Quranic clay passages; it is an exegetical interpretation distinct from the sound-based description.
- Lane · entry 26318
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 4 occurrencesBroader Classical Arabic meanings
Recorded for this root in the Classical lexicons beyond its Quran usage. These are secondary to the Quran senses above.
Show 49 Classical meanings
صَلَّ
To sound, ring, or emit a sound.
Said of iron, nails, helmets, jars, bits, ornaments, dry things, and thunder; repeated or more emphatic sound is expressed by related reduplicated forms.
- Lane · entry 26295
صَلَّ
To make a rumbling or crackling sound associated with thirst or dryness.
Said of the belly of a thirsty person or animal, of a dried water-skin, and of the sound made as water enters the ground.
- Lane · entry 26295
صَلَّ
To become stinking or altered for the worse.
Said of flesh and of water, the latter becoming worse in taste and color.
- Lane · entry 26295
- Lane · entry 26297
صَلَّ
To become dried up.
Attested in a reported alternative reading of Quran 32:9; the reading and interpretation are distinct from the ordinary reading of that verse.
- Lane · entry 26295
صَلَّ
To befall as a calamity or misfortune.
Used in the construction صَلَّتْهُمُ الصَّالَّةُ, ‘the calamity befell them.’
- Lane · entry 26295
صَلَّ
To clear or separate a drink or material from impurities.
Said of clearing wine or another beverage, and of separating grain from earth by washing it with water.
- Lane · entry 26295
صَلَّلَ
To put skin or a lining onto a boot or another object.
The derived form denotes applying a piece of skin or an inner lining, especially to footwear.
- Lane · entry 26296
صَلْصَلَ
To threaten, menace, frighten, or terrify.
A figurative use of the reduplicated verb.
- Lane · entry 26298
صَلْصَلَ
To slay the chief man of an army.
A specialized lexical use reported for the reduplicated verb.
- Lane · entry 26298
صَلْصَلَ
To utter a word or sentence with a show of verbal skill.
Describes affected or ostentatiously skilful formulation of speech.
- Lane · entry 26298
تَصَلْصَلَ
To become dry and crackling, said of the black mud in a pool left by a torrent.
The sound is presented as a consequence of the mud's drying.
- Lane · entry 26299
صُلٌّ
Altered or spoiled flesh-meat.
A nominal description of meat that has deteriorated.
- Lane · entry 26301
صِلٌّ
A serpent, especially one regarded as deadly or resistant to charming.
Some descriptions specify a yellow serpent found in sand or one whose bite kills immediately.
- Lane · entry 26302
صِلٌّ
A cunning, crafty, and abominable person likened to a serpent.
Used figuratively, especially of a person formidable in contention.
- Lane · entry 26302
صِلٌّ
A calamity or misfortune.
A figurative nominal use.
- Lane · entry 26302
صِلٌّ
A sharp sword.
A figurative extension of the serpent term.
- Lane · entry 26302
صِلٌّ
An equal, counterpart, or match.
Used in expressions comparing one person or thing with another.
- Lane · entry 26302
صِلٌّ
A certain plant or species of tree.
A separate nominal plant meaning.
- Lane · entry 26302
صَلَّةٌ
A forceful ringing sound, especially that of a nail or bit.
A noun for the sound produced when an object is struck forcefully.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
Dry ground or land.
Definitions vary as to the precise relation of the dry tract to neighboring areas; the term is associated with ground that makes a sound when trodden.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
The sole of a boot.
The sole is named by association with dry ground and the sound of treading.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
Skin, especially dry or untanned skin; also stinking skin in the tan.
Used in descriptions of the skin or covering of a boot.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
Rain, either extensive and abundant or scattered and scanty.
The lexical evidence records both opposing quantities; scattered portions of rain are also called صِلَالٌ.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
A portion or scattered growth of herbage.
The herbage is named after the rain associated with it.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
Moist earth.
A separate earth-related nominal use.
- Lane · entry 26303
صَلَّةٌ
The anus.
An anatomical nominal use.
- Lane · entry 26303
صُلَّةٌ
A remnant of water in a watering-trough, or of oil and similar liquids.
Refers to what remains after the greater part of a liquid has been taken or used.
- Lane · entry 26304
صُلَّةٌ
A fetid odor.
A nominal odor-related use.
- Lane · entry 26304
صُلَّةٌ
The flabbiness of moist flesh-meat.
A descriptive nominal use for soft, slack flesh.
- Lane · entry 26304
صِلَّةٌ
A very cunning person in whom there is no good.
Used in the expression هُوَ تِبْعُ صِلَّةٍ, with variant vocalization reported.
- Lane · entry 26305
صِلَالٌ
The leg of a boot, or its lining.
The sources distinguish the boot leg from the lining as variant related uses.
- Lane · entry 26306
صَلَّالٌ
Clay that makes a sound like new pottery.
A descriptive adjective or substantivized adjective for resonant clay.
- Lane · entry 26309
صَلَّالٌ
A man whose belly makes a rumbling sound from thirst.
A substantivized descriptive use.
- Lane · entry 26309
صَلَّالٌ
Water altered for the worse in taste and color.
A nominal or adjectival description of deteriorated water.
- Lane · entry 26309
صِلِّيَانٌ
A certain herb or leguminous plant used as pasture.
The plant is described as a durable, valuable kind of herbage and as camel fodder.
- Lane · entry 26311
صَالٌّ
Water that falls on the ground, which then dries or cracks and makes a sound.
A substantivized participial description of the audible effect of drying ground.
- Lane · entry 26312
صَلْصَلٌ
Stinking or altered in odor.
Derived by association with the verb used of deteriorated flesh.
- Lane · entry 26314
صُلْصُلٌ
A small bird, including a pigeon or a female pigeon; also identified with a collared turtle-dove in some descriptions.
The descriptions vary among a small bird, a pigeon, and a bird resembling the collared turtle-dove.
- Lane · entry 26315
صُلْصُلٌ
The forelock or a white marking in a horse's mane, including whitened hair on the back or breast.
The exact marking varies in the lexical descriptions.
- Lane · entry 26315
صُلْصُلٌ
A drinking-cup or bowl, especially a small one.
Includes the vessel called غُمَر.
- Lane · entry 26315
صُلْصُلٌ
A skilful pastor.
A specialized personal-description noun.
- Lane · entry 26315
صُلْصُلَةٌ
A remaining portion of water or oil in a pool, vessel, or skin.
Used of liquid left in a torrent pool or container after the greater part has gone.
- Lane · entry 26317
صُلْصُلَةٌ
Hair collected on the head or hanging down around the ears.
A synonymic hair-related use with several traditional descriptions of length and arrangement.
- Lane · entry 26317
صَلْصَالٌ
A noisy or strong-voiced ass, wild ass, or horse.
Describes an animal vehement or sharp in its braying, neighing, or other voice.
- Lane · entry 26318
صَلْصَالَةٌ
A land in which there is no one.
A separate place noun.
- Lane · entry 26318
مِصَلَّةٌ
A vessel in which wine or another beverage is cleared.
A dialectal term associated with Yemen in the lexical evidence.
- Lane · entry 26320
مُصَلِّلٌ
Copious or abundant rain.
A descriptive nominal or adjectival use.
- Lane · entry 26321
مُصَلِّلٌ
A generous, noble, honorable chief of pure parentage.
Applied to a person characterized by nobility, generosity, honor, and purity of lineage.
- Lane · entry 26321
مُصَلِّلٌ
A maker of boots or footwear.
A specialized occupational use.
- Lane · entry 26321
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The second Quranic sense records a reported interpretation of صَلْصَالٌ as odor-altered black mud; it should not be treated as the only meaning of the Quranic noun.
The Lane material includes variant readings and competing lexical explanations, especially for the verb صَلَّ and for several Classical nominal forms.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
lane-unit:SlSl:26323:g1:sub2 reports مُصَلْصَلٌ as a possible epithet only if it is not a scribal mistake; the uncertain attribution is not assigned to a public meaning.