Quranic root
صوب
ṣ · w · b
A root oriented toward descent, arrival, and settling in the proper place or state.
From something descending and settling come the related notions of rain falling, an arrow reaching its mark, an event befalling someone, and correctness as arriving at what is right. The noun مُصِيبَةٌ developed toward the specialized sense of an affliction or calamity.
- Maqāyīs · row 2858
- Mufradāt · row 855
- 5
- Quran-attested forms
- 6
- Quran senses
- 77
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
أَصَابَ
ʾaṣāba
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- Quran occurrences
- 64 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 reach, strike, or befall a person or thing; to take effect upon it, including by afflicting it or bringing a benefit to it.
The Quran uses the active Form IV verb for events, harms, benefits, rain, and other effects that reach or take effect upon an object. English renderings therefore include “strike,” “befall,” “afflict,” and, in beneficial contexts, “bestow.”
- Lane · entry 26785
- Mufradāt · row 855
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:156word 3
“strikes them”
Quran 12:56word 10
“We bestow”
To go or proceed wherever one intends or wishes.
This distinct directional-volitional use is attested in the Quranic expression describing movement wherever the agent desires; it is not merely the sense of suffering an event or reaching a target.
- Lane · entry 26785
Selected Quran examples
Quran 38:36word 8
“he directed”
صَوَابٌ
ṣawābun
- 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.
What is right or correct; a right or correct saying, judgment, or action.
The Quranic occurrence refers specifically to a correct utterance, while the lexical term also applies to correctness in conduct, judgment, and other matters.
- Lane · entry 26795
- Mufradāt · row 855
Selected Quran examples
Quran 78:38word 14
“(what is) correct”
صَيِّبٌ
ṣayyibun
- Part of speech
- Noun / 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.
Rain-bearing cloud or pouring rain; a rainstorm.
In the Quranic simile, the term is explained both as a cloud possessing rain and as the rain itself; the lexical evidence does not require choosing only one of these readings.
- Lane · entry 26791
- Mufradāt · row 855
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:19word 2
“like a rainstorm”
مُصِيبٌ
muṣībun
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
Striking, reaching, or befalling; one that hits or takes effect upon someone or something.
This is the active participle of أَصَابَ and occurs in the Quran with an understood or expressed object that is to be struck or affected.
- Lane · entry 26785
Selected Quran examples
Quran 11:81word 21
“will strike her”
مُصِيبَةٌ
muṣībahun
- Part of speech
- Noun · event noun
- Quran occurrences
- 10 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.
An affliction, calamity, misfortune, disaster, or other evil accident that befalls someone.
In Quranic usage, the noun is specialized for a harmful event or adversity, whether portrayed as striking people or as occurring through what they have done.
- Lane · entry 26785
- Lane · entry 26812
- Mufradāt · row 855
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:156word 4
“a misfortune”
Quran 42:30word 4
“(the) misfortune”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:19كَصَيِّبٍۢlike a rainstorm
- 2:156أَصَـٰبَتْهُمstrikes them
- 2:156مُّصِيبَةٌۭa misfortune
- 2:264فَأَصَابَهُۥthen fell on it
- 2:265أَصَابَهَاfell on it
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 35 Classical meanings
صَابَ
Of rain, to pour forth or descend; more generally, to come down from a higher place or go down a declivity.
This is the intransitive Form I verb, distinct from the Form IV Quranic headword أَصَابَ.
- Lane · entry 26783
صَابُوا
They fell upon or assaulted them.
A conventional hostile-use expression with a plural subject and an object of attack.
- Lane · entry 26783
صَوْبٌ
Rainfall, the pouring of rain, or the pouring forth of water; rain that descends abundantly.
Used as a substantive or epithet for rain and its descent.
- Lane · entry 26783
- Lane · entry 26791
صَوَّبَ
To send forth, start, or let a horse go in running.
A derived Form II use reported as an extended application.
- Lane · entry 26784
صَوَّبَ
To lower, depress, incline downward, or make descend; intransitively, to descend or go down.
Used of lowering or depressing such things as the head, hand, arm, or a vessel, and also of movement downward.
- Lane · entry 26784
صَوَّبَ
To direct one’s sight or gaze toward something.
A directional construction with the object of sight as its complement.
- Lane · entry 26784
صَوَّبَ
To declare a statement, opinion, or action right; to confirm that someone was correct.
Used of approving or judging speech, opinion, or conduct as correct.
- Lane · entry 26784
تَصَوَّبَ
To become lowered or depressed; to sink to a lower position.
A quasi-passive or intransitive Form V counterpart of lowering.
- Lane · entry 26786
تَصَاوَبَ
To be well directed or properly oriented.
This sense is reported without a cited authority in the supplied lexical evidence.
- Lane · entry 26787
اِسْتَصْوَبَ
To regard, consider, or hold something to be right or correct.
The object may be an opinion, saying, or deed; اِسْتَصَابَ is given as an equivalent form.
- Lane · entry 26789
صَابٌ
A bitter tree or the expressed juice of such a tree, including a tree whose sap resembles milk and can harm the eye.
A botanical and medicinal term with variant identifications in the lexical sources.
- Lane · entry 26790
صَوْبٌ
A course, tendency, direction, bearing, or the place toward which something is directed.
Used of correcting or maintaining a course and of the direction or side toward which a thing tends.
- Lane · entry 26791
صَابَةٌ
Weakness or feebleness of intellect; a touch or degree of insanity or madness, including madness attributed to possession.
A specialized nominal use, distinct from the rainfall and direction branches.
- Lane · entry 26792
صُوبَةٌ
A collected heap, pile, or quantity, especially of wheat, dates, dust, earth, or other material.
It can denote an unmeasured or unweighed collection and, regionally, a place where dates are collected and dried.
- Lane · entry 26793
صَائِبٌ
Hitting or going straight to the mark; hence right, accurate, or sound in an opinion.
Originally applied to an arrow that reaches its target, and extended to a correct view or judgment.
- Lane · entry 26798
صُوَّابَةٌ
The choice, best, or most excellent member or class of a people or of anything.
May describe the best portion or select class of a group or thing.
- Lane · entry 26802
صُوَّابَةٌ
The collective body or gathered group of a people.
This collective sense is distinct from the sense of the best or choicest part.
- Lane · entry 26802
أَصْوَبُ
More or most affected by weakness of intellect, insanity, or madness.
A comparative or superlative form used in an exchange about mental impairment.
- Lane · entry 26804
مَصَابٌ
A place where rain pours down, especially a point where rain is discharged from clouds.
The plural مَصَاوِبُ refers to multiple places of rain discharge.
- Lane · entry 26805
مُصَابٌ
Hit, struck, smitten, wounded, hurt, affected, assailed, or afflicted.
The passive participle of أَصَابَ; this is a different headword and voice from the Quranic active participle مُصِيبٌ.
- Lane · entry 26806
مُصَابٌ
Affected by weakness or feebleness of intellect, insanity, or madness attributed to possession.
A specialized adjectival use of the passive-participial headword.
- Lane · entry 26806
مُصَابٌ
Sugar-cane.
A separate lexical noun, not a participial meaning.
- Lane · entry 26806
مِصْوَبٌ
A ladle.
An instrumental noun.
- Lane · entry 26808
أَصَابَ
To descend or go down into a lower land or country.
A Form IV directional use distinct from the Quranic Form IV sense of reaching or befalling.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To hit the right thing; to say or do what is right.
Used metaphorically from striking a target and contrasted with missing or erring.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To attain or obtain the thing sought or wanted.
The object is a desired result or goal rather than an event that befalls the subject.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To obtain sexual enjoyment or have sexual intercourse, used euphemistically.
A conventional euphemistic construction, including expressions with a spouse or wife.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To take or take hold of property or other things.
A transitive use describing acquisition by the hand or possession.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To find, encounter, experience, discover, or recognize something as right.
The object may be a thing, event, hidden matter, or judgment found to be correct.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To do good to someone or confer a benefit upon him.
A benefactive construction with بِـ; it is distinct from merely being reached by a beneficial event.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To destroy or extirpate.
A strong resultative use in which an event or fate brings about the destruction of persons or possessions.
- Lane · entry 26785
أَصَابَ
To try or test someone through affliction.
A construction in which affliction is presented as a trial intended for a beneficial outcome.
- Lane · entry 26785
مُصَابَةٌ
A class, rank, or condition according to which people are disposed or placed.
Attested in the expression describing leaving people arranged according to their classes or ranks.
- Lane · entry 26810
مُصِيبَةٌ
Originally, a shot with an arrow or an arrow-strike.
This is the older lexical image underlying the later specialized noun for an affliction or calamity; it is not the ordinary Quranic sense.
- Lane · entry 26812
مُصَوَّبٌ
A technical form of nibbing in which the outer part of a writing reed extends beyond its pith.
A specialized terminology of reed and writing manufacture, opposed to قَائِمٌ.
- Lane · entry 26813
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
صَيِّبٌ has an explicitly reported Quranic interpretive range: it may denote the rain-bearing cloud or the rain itself.
The Quranic intent example for أَصَابَ is anchored to the independently supplied QAC occurrence 38:36:8; no modern verse location is inferred from Lane's historical citation notation.
مُصِيبَةٌ is a Quranic noun for calamity, while the older arrow-shot association is kept separately as a classical lexical meaning.