Quranic root
طفأ
ṭ · f · ʾ
The attested semantic center is the cessation of flame, heat, or fire, or the causing of these to cease.
The lexical record shows an intransitive fire becoming extinguished alongside the causative act of extinguishing it, with figurative and specialized extensions built on the same extinction imagery.
- Lane · entry 11429
- Lane · entry 11430
- Lane · entry 11433
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- Quran senses
- 3
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
أَطْفَأَ
ʾaṭfaʾa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- 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.
To extinguish or quench a fire; figuratively, to suppress an active conflict or similar force.
Transitive Form IV. The Quran applies the verb to putting out a fire kindled for war and figuratively to attempting to extinguish the light of God; these are applications of the same extinguishing construction, not separate light-specific senses.
- Lane · entry 11430
Selected Quran examples
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 3 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 5 Classical meanings
طَفِئَ
Of a fire: to become extinguished or quenched, ceasing to flame; in the stricter description, its live coals have also cooled.
The lexical distinction recorded here separates a fire whose flame has merely died down while its coals still burn from one whose flame and coals are fully extinct.
- Lane · entry 11429
مُطْفِئُ الجَمْرِ
A traditional name for one of the seven days called أَيَّامُ العَجُوز, associated with extinguishing the last live coal.
The day is variously reported as the fourth or the fifth of the series.
- Lane · entry 11433
مُطْفِئَةُ الرَّضْفِ
A piece of fat that melts on heated stones and quenches them; also, in an associated expression, a sheep or goat slaughtered in a way described as quenching those stones.
The cited lexical accounts variously describe the animal as lean or fat.
- Lane · entry 11433
مُطْفِئَةُ
A serpent whose poison is said to extinguish a fire as it passes over heated stones.
This is a specialized Classical usage connected with the serpent’s effect on heated stones.
- Lane · entry 11433
مُطْفِئُ
A calamity or misfortune, figuratively conceived as something that makes what came before forgotten and extinguishes its heat.
Figurative usage based on the extinction of heat and the displacement of what preceded it.
- Lane · entry 11433
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The specialized calendrical, heated-stone, serpent, and calamity usages are broader Classical expressions and are kept separate from the Quran-attested Form IV verb.
No Maqayis or Mufradat evidence was supplied; the root-level orientation is therefore limited to the directly matched lexical evidence.