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Quranic root

بهج

b · h · j

The root centers on joy together with freshness, radiance, and visible beauty.

Its lexical development links flourishing or beautiful appearance with the joy it evokes or displays, and extends to becoming joyful, causing joy, beautifying, competing in beauty, and abundant blossoming.

  • Maqāyīs · row 857
  • Mufradāt · row 162
  • Lane · entry 37301
  • Lane · entry 37302
  • Lane · entry 37303
2
Quran-attested forms
2
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.

بَهِيج

bahīj

Part of speech
Adjective
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.

  1. Beautiful, fresh, and pleasingly verdant.

    In the Quranic attestations, the adjective describes kinds or varieties of vegetation and herbage, emphasizing their fresh and attractive appearance.

    • Lane · entry 37311
    • Mufradāt · row 162
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 22:5word 69

    beautiful

    Quran 50:7word 11

    beautiful

بَهْجَة

bahjah

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.

  1. Beauty, freshness, and visible splendor, with the gladness or delight associated with such an appearance.

    In the Quranic construction, the quality belongs to gardens and denotes their visibly beautiful, fresh, and splendid appearance.

    • Lane · entry 37310
    • Mufradāt · row 162
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 27:60word 14

    of beauty (and delight)

Occurrences in the Quran

Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.

  • 22:5بَهِيجٍۢbeautiful
  • 27:60بَهْجَةٍۢof beauty (and delight)
  • 50:7بَهِيجٍۢbeautiful
View all 3 occurrences

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 13 Classical meanings
  • بَهُجَ

    To become beautiful, goodly, bright, or splendid; of a person, to take on a joyful or happy appearance.

    The verb is used of persons and things; its plant usage denotes becoming beautiful and bright in vegetation or herbage.

    • Lane · entry 37301
  • بَهِجَ

    To become joyful, glad, or happy; to rejoice in or at something.

    The rejoicing construction is expressed with بِهِ or لَهُ, meaning to rejoice in, at, or through something.

    • Lane · entry 37301
  • بَهَجَ

    To gladden or make a person joyful, glad, or happy.

    The subject may be a thing, affair, or event that produces joy in a person.

    • Lane · entry 37301
  • بَهَّجَ

    To beautify, adorn, or render beautiful or goodly.

    • Lane · entry 37302
  • بَاهَجَ

    To vie or contend with another for superiority in beauty, goodliness, glory, or excellence.

    The construction is reciprocal or comparative, involving competition with another party.

    • Lane · entry 37303
  • أَبْهَجَ

    Of land or earth, to become beautiful, bright, or splendid through its plants or herbage.

    This is an intransitive environmental construction with the land or earth as subject.

    • Lane · entry 37304
  • تَبَاهَجَ

    Of meadows or gardens, to become abundant in blossoms or flowers, as though vying with one another in beauty.

    The usage is a figurative or derived description of flowering meadows or gardens.

    • Lane · entry 37305
  • اِسْتَبْهَجَ

    To rejoice or become joyful at or through something, including an announcement.

    The construction expresses becoming glad in response to an event, object, or announcement.

    • Lane · entry 37307
  • بَهِيج

    Beautiful or goodly; beautiful in color, bright, or splendid, including a person's attractive or happy-looking appearance.

    It may describe things, vegetation, or a person; it is also applied specifically to a woman whose beauty predominates.

    • Lane · entry 37311
  • بَهِيج

    Fat, when said of a camel's hump.

    This is a figurative application associating the hump's fatness with combined beauty or goodliness.

    • Lane · entry 37311
  • بَهِج

    Joyful, glad, or happy.

    This adjective denotes a person's or other subject's state of joy rather than visible beauty alone.

    • Lane · entry 37309
  • بَهْجَة

    Beauty or goodliness, including beauty of color, brightness, splendor, or a beautiful and happy appearance.

    It may describe a thing, plant or herbage, or a person's appearance.

    • Lane · entry 37310
  • بَهْجَة

    Happiness, joy, or gladness.

    • Lane · entry 37310

Cautions

Points that affect how this root should be read.

  • Lane's printed citation “l. 7” is a historical Roman-numeral reference corresponding here to QAC's 50:7; it is not the modern location 1:7.

  • The supplied Quran occurrences are limited to the adjective بَهِيج and noun بَهْجَة; the verbal forms are represented only as broader Classical Arabic evidence.