Quranic root
طرق
ṭ · r · q
The root develops around four related orientations: coming by night, striking or beating, softness or slackening, and placing one layer over another. From these arise notions of roads and ways, successive tracks or layers, nocturnal arrival, and various forms of overlaying or impact.
The lexical evidence presents the root as a cluster rather than a single uniform meaning. A road may be understood as a beaten or trodden course; night arrival is associated with knocking at a door; and layered or overlaid things motivate meanings involving paths, strata, coverings, folds, and successive arrival.
- Maqāyīs · row 3021
- 3
- Quran-attested forms
- 4
- 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.
طَرِيق
ṭarīq
- 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.
A path, road, or way.
Used literally for a route or beaten course and also for a figurative way or means. The Quranic occurrences include an indefinite path, a way, and a divinely directed path.
- Lane · entry 11279
- Mufradāt · row 894
Selected Quran examples
Quran 20:77word 10
“a path”
Quran 4:168word 12
“(to) a way”
Quran 4:169word 2
“(the) way”
Quran 46:30word 18
“a Path”
طَرِيقَة
ṭarīqah
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 5 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.
A way, course, manner, practice, or religious orientation; by metonymy, the people or group defined by such a way.
The word may describe conduct or an established course, whether approved or disapproved. In collective or possessive constructions it can denote a group adhering to a way, including differing sects or an eminent body of people. The Quranic usages include conduct, a people's way, and the way or course being followed.
- Lane · entry 11282
- Mufradāt · row 894
Selected Quran examples
Quran 20:63word 12
“with your way”
Quran 20:104word 8
“(in) conduct”
Quran 72:11word 8
“(are on) ways”
Quran 72:16word 4
“the Way”
A series of layers or stages arranged one above another; specifically, strata or levels of the heavens.
This plural-oriented usage describes successive superposed levels rather than a traveled road. It is explicitly applied to the seven heavenly strata.
- Lane · entry 11282
- Mufradāt · row 894
Selected Quran examples
Quran 23:17word 5
“paths”
طَارِق
ṭāriq
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- Quran occurrences
- 2 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.
One who or something that comes by night; specifically, the star that appears at night.
The active-participial sense is conventionally specialized to a nocturnal comer. In the Quranic passage it refers to the night-appearing star, also explained as the morning star because of its appearance toward the end of the night.
- Lane · entry 11288
- Mufradāt · row 894
Selected Quran examples
Quran 86:1word 2
“and the night comer”
Quran 86:2word 4
“the night comer (is)”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 4:168طَرِيقًا(to) a way
- 4:169طَرِيقَ(the) way
- 20:63بِطَرِيقَتِكُمُwith your way
- 20:77طَرِيقًۭاa path
- 20:104طَرِيقَةً(in) conduct
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 109 Classical meanings
طَرْقٌ
Striking, beating, pounding, or knocking; an act of hitting with the hand, a stick, or a hammer.
Includes knocking at a door, beating wool or hair to loosen it, striking iron, and slapping. The same verbal root can describe beating a surface or road with the feet.
- Lane · entry 11261
- Mufradāt · row 894
طَرَقَ
To travel or tread a road.
A figurative extension of beating or treading a track; the object may be the road itself.
- Lane · entry 11261
طُرُوقٌ
Coming or arriving by night; by extension, a sudden nocturnal visitation or occurrence.
Used of a person, star, apparition, anxiety, calamity, or other event arriving at night or descending suddenly as though knocking at a door.
- Lane · entry 11261
- Lane · entry 11288
- Lane · entry 11289
طَرَقَ
For a male animal, to cover a female for mating.
The evidence especially illustrates a stallion camel covering a she-camel; the construction is a sexual or mating use, not a general meaning of road or travel.
- Lane · entry 11261
- Mufradāt · row 894
طَرْقٌ
Divination by striking or arranging pebbles, sand, or marks.
Includes pessomancy and related forms of geomantic or sand divination, traditionally associated with diviners and sometimes women.
- Lane · entry 11261
- Mufradāt · row 894
طَرَّقَ
To practice or undertake divination, especially pebble divination.
A derived verbal use associated with the practice of divination or related artifice.
- Lane · entry 11262
طَرَقَ
To brand a ewe with the mark called طِرَاق.
A specialized livestock-marking use.
- Lane · entry 11261
طُرِقَ
To become weak in intellect and soft or yielding.
This is a passive or stative verbal use, distinct from the ordinary physical meaning of striking.
- Lane · entry 11261
طَرِقَ
To have weakness or crookedness in the knees, arm, foreleg, or leg.
Applied to a human being or camel; one description concerns crookedness in the ساق without the condition called فَحَج.
- Lane · entry 11261
طَرِقَ
To drink turbid or muddy water.
The water is water in which animals have waded, urinated, or defecated and which has consequently become cloudy.
- Lane · entry 11261
طَرَّقَ
To make a road or passage level, usable, or available; to give or admit a way to someone or something.
Includes making a route passable and granting access. The construction may also be used of making a way for animals.
- Lane · entry 11262
طَرَّقَتْ
To begin bringing forth by making a passage, with the young partly emerging and then becoming temporarily stuck.
Used of a pregnant woman or female animal; the evidence also applies a related image to a bird making a place for laying eggs. The defining feature is partial emergence followed by obstruction.
- Lane · entry 11262
طَرَّقَ بِحَقِّي
To acknowledge another person's right or due after previously denying it.
A conventional figurative construction.
- Lane · entry 11262
طَرَّقَ الإِبِلَ
To withhold camels from pasture or from something they would otherwise approach.
A rare, authority-attributed lexical use.
- Lane · entry 11262
طَرَّقَ
To sew one layer of material over another, as in doubling a shield, sole, or skin.
The construction describes reinforcement by attaching a matching second layer.
- Lane · entry 11262
طَارَقَ
To place or sew one thing over another; to put one garment, coat of mail, or sole over another.
A Form III construction that may involve a single agent; the resulting arrangement is superposed or doubled.
- Lane · entry 11263
طَارَقَ
For clouds to follow upon darkness.
A figurative use of successive arrival or following.
- Lane · entry 11263
طَارَقَ
To employ varied modes or styles in speech.
A figurative construction meaning to take up different manners or techniques of expression.
- Lane · entry 11263
- Lane · entry 11269
أَطْرَقَ
To lend someone a stallion for covering his she-camels.
A causative livestock-breeding construction.
- Lane · entry 11264
أَطْرَقَ
To provide or cause a person to have a mate or sexual partner.
Preserved as a specialized idiomatic or supplicatory construction; the source uses the language of marriage or sexual intercourse.
- Lane · entry 11264
أَطْرَقَ
To lower or incline the head, lower the eyes, or become silent.
May describe a physical lowering of the head or gaze, natural laxness of the eyelids, silence from fear, or a deliberate lowering of the eyes.
- Lane · entry 11264
- Lane · entry 11285
- Lane · entry 11294
أَطْرَقَ
To incline toward diversion, sport, or play.
A figurative use of inclination.
- Lane · entry 11264
أَطْرَقَ
To set a snare or trap for game.
Applied to beasts or birds of the chase.
- Lane · entry 11264
أَطْرَقَ لِفُلَانٍ
To plot against someone through calumny or slander in order to bring about his ruin.
A figurative extension of setting a snare.
- Lane · entry 11264
تَطَرَّقَ
To find a way to something or seek access to it.
Usually followed by إلى and describing approach by a means or route.
- Lane · entry 11265
تَطَارَقَ
To come consecutively or follow one another.
Used of camels, darkness, clouds, or tidings arriving in succession; a secondary reported use describes dispersal along different roads.
- Lane · entry 11266
اِطَّرَقَ
To overlay or become arranged in successive layers.
Used of a bird's feathers, layers of earth compacted by rain, deposits in a tank, or night coming portion upon portion.
- Lane · entry 11267
اِسْتَطْرَقَ
To request or demand a stallion for breeding.
A Form X request construction.
- Lane · entry 11268
اِسْتَطْرَقَ
To request divination by pebbles and the diviner's interpretation.
A specialized request construction.
- Lane · entry 11268
اِسْتَطْرَقَ
To seek, take, or travel a road or passage.
Includes taking a way between ranks or along a route to a door, and taking a portion as a passage.
- Lane · entry 11268
طَرْقٌ
A tune, melody, or musical air played on the lute or a similar instrument.
The word may also refer to a kind or variety of musical sound.
- Lane · entry 11269
طَرْقٌ
A stallion camel that covers females.
A substantivized or epithetic use of the verbal notion of covering.
- Lane · entry 11269
طَرْقٌ
The reproductive fluid of a stallion camel, and by extension sometimes of a man; also the fee for a camel's covering.
The evidence treats the stallion's covering as the original association and reports human application as figurative or epithetic.
- Lane · entry 11269
طَرْقٌ
Turbid or stagnant water in which animals have waded, urinated, or defecated.
May denote rainwater or other collected water, or places where such water gathers in stony land.
- Lane · entry 11269
طَرْقٌ
A snare, trap, or net used to catch wild animals.
Includes a hunter's snare comparable to a فَخّ or حِبَالَة.
- Lane · entry 11269
طَرْقٌ
A kind of palm tree.
A dialectal botanical use.
- Lane · entry 11269
طِرْقٌ
Fatness, and consequently strength or vigor.
Often occurs in the negative expression meaning that a person or camel has no fat or strength.
- Lane · entry 11271
- Maqāyīs · row 3021
طَرَقٌ
Rendered submissive, tractable, or broken.
Applied especially to a beast.
- Lane · entry 11272
طَرَقَةٌ
A row of bricks, palm trees, or other things arranged in a line.
A collective or unit noun for an ordered row.
- Lane · entry 11272
طَرَقَةٌ
A track or line of footprints, especially the single track made by camels following closely one after another.
The emphasis is on successive marks lying along one route.
- Lane · entry 11272
- Lane · entry 11274
طَرَقٌ
A fold or doubling of a waterskin or similar object.
The plural denotes the folds produced when the skin is bent or doubled.
- Lane · entry 11272
طَرَقٌ
Overlapping folds or layers of the belly.
A bodily anatomical use.
- Lane · entry 11272
طَرَقٌ
The condition of feathers overlying one another; in some descriptions, softness or flaccidity of feathers.
A descriptive use for birds' feathers.
- Lane · entry 11272
- Lane · entry 11278
- Lane · entry 11293
طَرْقَةٌ
One time or one occurrence; an occasion.
Used for repeated occurrences, such as doing something once or twice, and in comparisons meaning times over.
- Lane · entry 11273
طَرْقَةُ الطَّرِيقِ
The main, middle, or distinct beaten track of a road.
A specialized road expression.
- Lane · entry 11273
طَرْقَةٌ
The work or manufacture of one person.
Used of objects, such as arrows, made by a single craftsman.
- Lane · entry 11273
طُرْقَةٌ
A way, course, custom, habit, or manner of being.
This broader Classical use includes a person's habitual practice or state, whether good or bad.
- Lane · entry 11274
طُرْقَةٌ
A line, streak, or stripe in a layered or marked object.
Applied to sewn materials, bows, and similar objects.
- Lane · entry 11274
- Lane · entry 11282
طُرْقَةٌ
Stones or other objects lying one upon another.
A layered-arrangement use.
- Lane · entry 11274
طُرْقَةٌ
Darkness, especially the darkness of night.
Appears in an expression for arriving during the darkness of night.
- Lane · entry 11274
طُرْقَةٌ
Inordinate desire or something coveted.
A rare lexical use reported with two closely related interpretations.
- Lane · entry 11274
طُرْقَةٌ
A specified unnatural or effeminate vice.
An attributed, specialized use; it is not a general meaning of way or custom.
- Lane · entry 11274
طُرْقَةٌ
Foolish, stupid, or deficient in understanding.
An adjectival use applied to a person.
- Lane · entry 11274
طُرْقَةٌ
Prey or a hunted object.
A rare meaning reported from a poetic lexicographical source.
- Lane · entry 11274
طَرَقَةٌ
An arrangement of things one upon another.
The expression describes placing objects in successive layers.
- Lane · entry 11276
طُرَقَةٌ
A person who journeys by night, especially to reach his household at night.
May also describe one who travels frequently by night.
- Lane · entry 11277
طِرَاقٌ
A sole sewn onto another sole to make a doubled sandal or shoe.
The added sole is made to match the first closely.
- Lane · entry 11278
طِرَاقٌ
The leather sole of a sandal after its thong has been removed; also a round piece of skin attached to a shield.
The evidence includes applications to the soles attached to camels' feet.
- Lane · entry 11278
طِرَاقٌ
Anything made to match or correspond with another thing.
A generalized extension from a matching additional layer.
- Lane · entry 11278
طِرَاقٌ
Expanded or rounded iron used for a helmet, armlet, or layered armor plates.
Includes plates of a helmet arranged one above another.
- Lane · entry 11278
طِرَاقٌ
A white brand or line made by fire on the middle of a ewe's ear.
Two such marks may be called طِرَاقَانِ.
- Lane · entry 11278
طَرِيق
A road-related expression involving wayfarers, road duties, or interception of a road.
Includes idioms for the people of the road, duties owed on a road, and making a road dangerous by robbery or violence.
- Lane · entry 11279
ابْنُ الطَّرِيقِ
A highway robber.
A figurative road expression.
- Lane · entry 11279
أَهْلُ طَرِيقِ اللهِ
Devotees or people dedicated to a religious way.
A conventional figurative expression.
- Lane · entry 11279
أُمُّ طَرِيقٍ
The hyena.
A fixed zoological expression.
- Lane · entry 11279
بَنَاتُ الطَّرِيقِ
Branches of a road that diverge and lead in different directions.
A plural idiom based on branching roads.
- Lane · entry 11279
طَرِيق
The space between two rows of palm trees.
A spatial extension based on the elongated course of a road.
- Lane · entry 11279
بِالطَّرِيقِ الأَوْلَى
With the stronger reason; a fortiori.
A later conventional phrase rather than a basic physical meaning of road.
- Lane · entry 11279
طَرِيقَة
A kind or variety of palm tree.
A botanical use distinct from the figurative meaning way or course.
- Lane · entry 11279
طَرُوقَةٌ
A she-camel covered by a stallion, or one that has reached the suitable age for covering; by metaphor, a wife.
It is not required that the she-camel has already been covered; the wife use is a metaphorical extension.
- Lane · entry 11281
- Mufradāt · row 894
طَرُوقَةٌ
Land capable of receiving and absorbing rainwater.
A metaphor from the female capable of being impregnated or affected by the male.
- Lane · entry 11281
طَرَائِقُ الدَّهْرِ
The vicissitudes or changing courses of time and fortune.
A figurative plural use.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرِيقَة
The air or tune of a song.
The source identifies this as probably post-Classical usage.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرِيقَة
A line, streak, stripe, crease, wrinkle, seam, vein, strip, or elongated portion of a material.
Applied to backs, rocks, sand, fat, flesh, cloth, and similarly extended forms.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرَائِقُ
Strips or shreds, as of a worn-out garment.
A figurative plural based on lines or strips.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرَائِقُ
Lines or wrinkle-like streaks in a spear shaft dried by shrinking.
A specialized descriptive use.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرَائِقُ
The last remaining soft or best portions of pasture.
A plural specialized to residual grazing.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرِيقَة
A declivity, channel, border, side, or edge of the ground, cloth, or a layered object.
The source preserves uncertainty over the exact reading of one ground term; the securely reported branch concerns an edge or border of something composed of parts or colors.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرَائِقُ
A narrow woven web of wool or hair sewn into the meeting place of tent sections.
A technical tent-making term; the tent-pole heads pass between these strips.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرِيقَة
A tent pole.
A technical architectural use for one of the poles of a tent.
- Lane · entry 11282
طَرِيقَة
A tall, very tall, smooth, or hand-reachable palm tree.
A dialectal botanical use with several reported specifications.
- Lane · entry 11282
طِرِّيقٌ
One who lowers his eyes or keeps silent much or often.
Applied to a person; the feminine substantive may denote gentleness, submissiveness, or affected languor.
- Lane · entry 11285
طِرِّيقٌ
The male of the bird called كَرَوَان.
The name is explained by the bird's falling to the ground and becoming silent when it sees a person.
- Lane · entry 11285
طِرِّيقٌ
Soft or level ground made easy to travel.
The image is of ground beaten level and trodden by feet.
- Lane · entry 11285
طِرِّيقَةٌ
Gentleness, submissiveness, softness, flaccidity, or languor in a person.
A substantive use that can also imply weakness or affected gentleness.
- Lane · entry 11286
طِرْيَاقٌ
An antidote or theriac.
A lexical variant equated with تِرْيَاقٌ.
- Lane · entry 11287
طَارِقٌ
A chief or eminent person, metaphorically likened to a lofty star.
Appears in the expression “daughters of a Ṭāriq,” meaning daughters of a chief or king.
- Lane · entry 11288
طَارِقٌ
A diviner, especially one who practices divination with pebbles.
A specialized substantive distinct from the nocturnal-comer sense.
- Lane · entry 11288
طَارِقَةٌ
A man's small tribal subdivision, such as a clan or sub-tribe.
A specialized kinship term.
- Lane · entry 11289
طَارِقَةٌ
A small couch large enough for one person.
A dialectal use from Yemen.
- Lane · entry 11289
طَوَارِق
A large mace or similar defensive implement, according to one lexical interpretation.
The source records scholarly disagreement with an alternative derivation as cuirasses; the mace interpretation is retained as reported evidence.
- Lane · entry 11289
طَارِقِيَّةٌ
A necklace or a type of necklace.
A specialized ornamental noun.
- Lane · entry 11290
أُطَيْرِقٌ
An early-bearing variety of palm tree.
Described as a Hijazi palm whose dates ripen before those of other palms.
- Lane · entry 11292
مُطْرَقٌ
Covered or reinforced by another layer sewn over it, especially a shield or sole.
The object may consist of two skins or of skin and sinew arranged one above another.
- Lane · entry 11293
مُطْرِقٌ
Low, ignoble, or mean in lineage or claim to honor.
Applied to a person and distinct from the physical lowering-of-the-eyes sense.
- Lane · entry 11294
مُطْرِقٌ
An enemy.
A figurative substantive derived from plotting against someone.
- Lane · entry 11294
مِطْرَقَةٌ
A rod, stick, or hammer used for beating wool, hair, iron, or a person.
Includes the blacksmith's hammer and the implement used to loosen wool or hair.
- Lane · entry 11296
مُطَرَّقٌ
Stamped or minted, as of gold.
A passive-participial use meaning marked or struck into form.
- Lane · entry 11297
مُطَرَّقَةٌ
A she-camel rendered tractable, submissive, or manageable.
A figurative passive-participial use.
- Lane · entry 11297
مُطَرَّقٌ
Marked with lines, streaks, or bands of different colors.
Applied to a horse-cloth or similar patterned object.
- Lane · entry 11297
مُطَرِّقٌ
A bird that has reached the time when its egg is about to emerge.
Applied specifically in the cited evidence to the bird called قَطَاة.
- Lane · entry 11298
مِطْرَاقٌ
A she-camel recently covered by a stallion.
A specialized livestock term.
- Lane · entry 11299
مَطَارِيق
Camels coming in one track or following one another closely.
The expression may emphasize a single road or successive approach to water.
- Lane · entry 11299
مِطْرَاقُ الشَّيْءِ
That which follows something, or resembles it.
A substantive expression based on succession and likeness.
- Lane · entry 11299
مَطَارِيق
People going on foot without riding animals.
A plural use with a reported singular variant.
- Lane · entry 11299
مَطْرُوقٌ
One whom everyone beats or slaps.
A passive-participial use that also motivates figurative meanings of being subdued or disabled.
- Lane · entry 11300
مَطْرُوقٌ
Herbage struck by rain after having dried up.
A specialized agricultural or pastoral use.
- Lane · entry 11300
مُنْطَرِقَاتٌ
Mineral substances.
A specialized plural noun reported without further semantic development in the entry.
- Lane · entry 11303
طَرْقٌ
Quickness of pace or going.
A lexical noun or epithet describing rapid movement or a quick pace.
- Lane · entry 11261
- Lane · entry 11294
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic interpretation of طَرِيقَتِكُمْ in 20:63 includes both an established way or religious system and, by metonymy, the people associated with it; both readings are retained under one sense because the lexical branch is the same.
The Quranic plural طَرَائِق in 23:17 is represented as superposed heavenly strata, while the related Quranic usages in 72:11 and 72:16 concern ways, courses, or groups defined by a way.
Some rare Classical meanings are attributed to individual authorities or preserved with textual uncertainty, especially the ground term associated with طَرِيقَةٌ and the interpretation of طَوَارِق as maces; these qualifications are retained in the relevant entries.