Quranic root
دحو
d · ḥ · w
The root centers on spreading something out and making a surface broad, level, or prepared.
The core image of spreading and preparing a surface extends to clearing loose material away, bodily extension, a horse's low foreleg-throwing gait, the ostrich's egg-laying hollow, and tools or games involving rolling and throwing.
- Maqāyīs · row 1722
- Mufradāt · row 457
- Lane · entry 324
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- Quran senses
- 1
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
دَحَا
daḥā
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To spread out, widen, and prepare the earth, with the associated displacement or clearing of its surface.
In the Quranic construction describing the earth, the spreading is also explained as removing or displacing it from its former place and laying its surface out broadly.
- Lane · entry 324
- Mufradāt · row 457
Selected Quran examples
Quran 79:30word 4
“He spread it”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 79:30دَحَىٰهَآHe spread 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 15 Classical meanings
دَحَا
To spread out, widen, expand, or extend a thing; of a person, to spread and make a surface plain, even, or smooth; of an ostrich, to widen the sandy place where it will lay its eggs.
These are broader Classical uses of the Form I verb apart from the specifically Quran-attested earth construction.
- Lane · entry 324
دَحَا
To approach sexually or have sexual intercourse.
A conventional intransitive or transitive use is attested in this meaning; the construction is described neutrally without restricting the object to the illustrative example.
- Lane · entry 324
دَحَا
To throw, propel, or drive something from its place; of rain or a torrent, to carry earth or pebbles away from the surface of the ground.
The object may be a stone or other loose material, and the verb is also used of natural forces moving such material.
- Lane · entry 324
الدَّحْوُ بِالحِجَارَةِ
A contest in throwing stones, with participants striving to surpass one another.
This is a conventional expression for competitive stone-throwing.
- Lane · entry 324
مَرَّ يَدْحُو
Of a horse, to move while throwing out its forelegs and keeping its hoofs relatively close to the ground.
The expression describes a characteristic manner of going, not the ordinary spreading sense.
- Lane · entry 324
دَحَا البَطْنُ
Of the belly, to become large, distended, swollen, or hanging down.
The enlargement is described as arising from fatness or disease; related derived forms are also reported for this bodily state.
- Lane · entry 324
تَدَحَّى
To spread or extend oneself over a broad area; to lie spread out.
Of camels lying on soft ground, it can describe their making hollows in the earth and leaving cavities where they lie; the cited description associates this behavior with fat camels.
- Lane · entry 326
اِدْحَوَى
Of a thing, to become spread out, expanded, or extended.
This is an intransitive Form IX development describing a thing's expanded state.
- Lane · entry 328
دَاحٍ
A spreader or expander; in a specialized epithet, the one who spreads and expands the earths; also a thing that drives loose material from the ground, such as rain.
The latter use is an agentive description of rain that removes pebbles from the earth's surface.
- Lane · entry 329
المَدْحُوَّاتُ
Things that have been spread out, extended, or expanded.
This is a passive participial plural used as a substantive expression for spread-out things.
- Lane · entry 329
أُدْحِيٌّ
The sandy place where an ostrich lays and hatches its eggs.
The name is connected with the ostrich's spreading and widening the place with its foot; plural forms are also reported.
- Lane · entry 330
بِنْتُ الأُدْحِيِّ
A female ostrich.
This is an idiomatic designation derived from the ostrich's egg-laying place.
- Lane · entry 330
الأُدْحِيُّ / الإِدْحِيُّ
A lunar mansion, identified as the twenty-first mansion and also called al-Baldah.
The designation is figurative, comparing the mansion's appearance with an ostrich's egg-laying hollow.
- Lane · entry 330
مِدْحَاةٌ
A wooden implement or toy driven along by a child, sweeping away whatever it encounters as it passes over the ground.
The item is named for its rolling or sweeping action.
- Lane · entry 333
المَدَاحِيّ
A stone-throwing game in which players throw rounded stones toward a hole and compete to win.
The stones and the hole are associated with the game's competitive throwing action; the singular implement-name is also used in this lexical field.
- Lane · entry 333
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The single Quranic occurrence combines the ordinary spreading sense with an explanation involving displacement or clearing of the earth's surface; these are presented as one Quranic constructional sense rather than as separate occurrences.
The female-ostrich designation is retained as an idiomatic extension associated with أُدْحِيٌّ, not as the primary meaning of the egg-laying-place noun.