Quranic root
طبع
ṭ · b · ʿ
A thing reaches a completed endpoint at which it is marked, impressed, or closed off.
From sealing and impressing, the lexical field extends to formed nature or disposition, completed filling, and the making of a finished form; the sources also preserve a divergent branch involving dirt or defilement.
- Maqāyīs · row 2987
- Mufradāt · row 888
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 11
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
طَبَعَ
ṭabaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 11 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 seal a heart, impressing upon it a closure that prevents guidance or belief from entering.
The Quranic occurrences use the verb with hearts as its object; active and passive forms express the act or its resulting condition.
- Lane · entry 10918
- Mufradāt · row 888
Selected Quran examples
Quran 10:74word 19
“We seal”
To soil or defile a heart.
An alternative Quranic interpretation recorded for the usages in 10:74 and 47:16; this is distinct from the ordinary interpretation of sealing.
- Mufradāt · row 888
Selected Quran examples
Quran 47:16word 19
“Allah has set a seal”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 4:155طَبَعَ(has) set a seal
- 7:100وَنَطْبَعُand We put a seal
- 7:101يَطْبَعُ(has been) put a seal
- 9:87وَطُبِعَand were sealed
- 9:93وَطَبَعَand Allah sealed
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 44 Classical meanings
طَبَعَ
To seal, stamp, imprint, impress, or brand; to make a marked impression on a thing.
Used of writing, letters, clay, coins, swords, animals, and similar objects; the impression may be made by a signet, die, or other instrument.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبَعَ
To make, fashion, mould, or manufacture a thing; to strike or mint coined money.
Used of forming an object from material such as clay, or of producing a finished manufactured object.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبَعَ
To create or adapt someone with a natural disposition suited to a thing.
A figurative construction describing an innate adaptation or constitution established by creation.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبَعَ
To fill a measure or container to its full capacity.
Used of a grain measure, leather bucket, skin, or similar receptacle.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبَعَ
To strike the back of the neck with the hand.
A conventional physical-action expression.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبَعَ
To come forth or emerge.
An idiomatic usage synonymous with طَلَعَ.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبِعَ
To become rusty, especially of a sword.
The result is described as rust covering or overspreading the metal.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبِعَ
To become dirty or soiled.
Used of a thing or garment.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبِعَ
To become filthy or foul in character.
A figurative description of a person's moral or personal condition.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبِعَ
To become sluggish, lazy, or lacking in effectiveness.
Used figuratively of a person who lacks penetrative energy or sharpness in affairs.
- Lane · entry 10918
طُبِعَ
To be rendered or pronounced filthy or foul.
A passive result construction; the usage may also describe being blamed or discommended.
- Lane · entry 10918
طُبِعَ
To be disgraced, dishonoured, blamed, or discommended.
A passive figurative usage describing an imposed state of disgrace or censure.
- Lane · entry 10918
طَبَّعَ
To seal thoroughly, repeatedly, or in quantity.
Form II usage, including sealing a number of writings or other objects.
- Lane · entry 10919
طَبَّعَ
To load a beast heavily or well.
Form II usage concerning the completeness or adequacy of a load.
- Lane · entry 10919
طَبَّعَ
To render something unclean, dirty, filthy, or impure.
Form II causative usage.
- Lane · entry 10919
تَطَبَّعَ
To affect or feign a disposition that is not one's own.
Form V usage, including affecting or imitating another person's natural qualities.
- Lane · entry 10920
تَطَبَّعَ
To become full or filled; of a river or rivulet, to overflow and pour out abundantly.
Form V usage describing a vessel's fullness or water overflowing its sides.
- Lane · entry 10920
اِنْطَبَعَ
To admit of being sealed, stamped, imprinted, or impressed.
A rare or analogically permitted Form VII usage, reported in the phrase describing something melting and then becoming impressionable.
- Lane · entry 10921
طَبْعٌ، طَبِيعَةٌ
Nature, innate disposition, character, temperament, or constitution.
Used of an innate human disposition or idiosyncrasy, and of the constitution or natural properties of things such as medicine and fire.
- Lane · entry 10923
- Lane · entry 10930
طَبْعٌ
A model, make, fashion, or mould.
Used in expressions describing the making of one thing according to the form of another.
- Lane · entry 10923
طِبْعٌ
A river or rivulet.
Traditionally applied to a watercourse dug and filled by people, rather than to certain naturally cleft great rivers; variant plurals are recorded.
- Lane · entry 10924
طِبْعٌ
A place where water sinks into or collects in the earth.
A geographic or hydrological usage.
- Lane · entry 10924
طِبْعٌ
The quantity that completely fills a measure, skin, or vessel.
The quantity is understood as leaving no room for addition.
- Lane · entry 10924
طَبَعٌ
Dirt, dirtiness, rust, or rustiness.
Used of dirt covering an object, or rust covering iron or a sword; a stronger degree of dirt from rust is also included.
- Lane · entry 10925
طَبَعٌ
Disgrace or dishonour.
Used of religious or worldly disgrace.
- Lane · entry 10925
طَبِعٌ
Rusty.
Applied especially to a sword.
- Lane · entry 10926
طَبِعٌ
Dirty or soiled.
An adjectival usage applied to a thing or garment.
- Lane · entry 10926
طَبِعٌ
Filthy, foul, base, ignoble, mean, or sordid in disposition.
Applied figuratively to a person whose character lacks shame regarding evil speech or action.
- Lane · entry 10926
طَبِعٌ
Sluggish, lazy, or indolent.
An adjectival figurative usage concerning a person's lack of energy or effectiveness.
- Lane · entry 10926
طُبْعَانُ الأَمِيرِ
The clay with which a ruler or governor seals.
A specialized noun for sealing material.
- Lane · entry 10927
طِبَاعَةٌ
The craft of manufacturing swords, knives, spearheads, or similar metal implements.
A technical craft noun.
- Lane · entry 10929
طِبَاعَةٌ
The art or process of printing.
A later or current usage of the noun, distinct from the older metalworking sense.
- Lane · entry 10929
طَبِيعِىٌّ
Natural, innate, essential, or relating to natural constitution.
An attributive adjective for what results from or belongs to an ordered natural disposition.
- Lane · entry 10931
طَبَّاعٌ
A manufacturer of swords, knives, spearheads, or similar implements.
An agent noun for the metalworking craft.
- Lane · entry 10932
طَبُّوعٌ
A venomous insect resembling a tick, whose bite causes intense pain and sometimes swelling.
A specialized zoological term with regional descriptions of the insect's identification.
- Lane · entry 10933
طِبِّيعٌ
The heart or inner part of the palm-tree spathe.
A specialized botanical noun, associated with fullness.
- Lane · entry 10934
طَابَعٌ، طَابِعٌ
A signet, seal, stamp, or branding instrument; also the resulting impressed mark.
The term may denote the implement, the clay or wax seal, or an impressed quality metaphorically attributed to speech or other things.
- Lane · entry 10935
مَطْبَعٌ
A place where something is sealed, stamped, imprinted, or impressed.
In later/current usage, the same noun also denotes a printing house.
- Lane · entry 10937
مَطْبَعٌ
A printing house.
A later or current institutional usage.
- Lane · entry 10937
مُطَبَّعٌ
Filled, as a skin filled with food.
A passive participial adjective describing a receptacle filled to capacity.
- Lane · entry 10939
مُطَبَّعٌ
Filled out with fat and flesh and firm in build; fat.
Applied to a she-camel, especially in the feminine form مُطَبَّعَةٌ.
- Lane · entry 10939
مُطَبَّعٌ
Heavily laden.
Applied to a load or to a she-camel burdened by her load.
- Lane · entry 10939
مُطَبَّعٌ
Trained, tractable, or manageable.
Applied to a colt rendered accustomed and responsive to handling.
- Lane · entry 10939
مَطْبُوعٌ
Naturally disposed or created with an adaptation to a quality such as generosity.
A passive participial usage describing an innate disposition.
- Lane · entry 10940
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic form is normalized to the Form I perfect citation form طَبَعَ; its 11 occurrences include active and passive inflections.
The interpretation of selected Quranic occurrences as defilement rather than sealing is preserved as an alternative lexical reading, not merged into the ordinary sealing definition.