Quranic root
دفأ
d · f · ʾ
The root denotes the state opposite cold: warmth or heat.
The semantic field extends from warmth itself to clothing, shelter, and useful livestock products that provide warmth or benefit, with further conventional extensions to seasonal phenomena, abundance, and bodily curvature.
- Maqāyīs · row 1782
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- 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.
دِفْء
difʾ
- 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.
Warmth or heat.
In the Quranic occurrence, the word denotes warmth associated with livestock and their use, especially protection from cold.
- Lane · entry 824
Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:5word 5
“(is) warmth”
The useful products and benefits obtained from livestock, including offspring, hair or fur, milk, and related produce.
This is an explicitly reported interpretation of the occurrence in 16:5; the connection with warmth is the use of livestock hair and wool for warm clothing.
- Lane · entry 824
Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:5word 5
“(is) warmth”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 16:5دِفْءٌۭ(is) warmth
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 18 Classical meanings
دَفِئَ
To be or become warm or hot; to experience warmth or heat.
The verb is also used of dwellings, garments, days, and nights that are warm or hot.
- Lane · entry 817
دَفِئَ
To wear clothing or another covering that makes one warm; to warm oneself with it.
The construction may describe protection from cold or the use of a garment as a source of warmth.
- Lane · entry 817
تَدَفَّأَ / اِدَّفَأَ / اِسْتَدْفَأَ
To warm oneself or put on what makes one warm.
These related derived forms are used of seeking or obtaining warmth through clothing.
- Lane · entry 817
أَدْفَأَ
To make someone warm or hot; to clothe someone in a garment that provides warmth.
The object may be a person, and the warming garment is described as woolen or similar.
- Lane · entry 819
أَدْفَأَ
To give someone a large or abundant gift; to give much.
This is a tropical or extended usage of the Form IV verb.
- Lane · entry 819
أَدْفَأَ
For a group of people to gather together, apparently so that they warm one another.
The collective action is understood through the mutual production of warmth.
- Lane · entry 819
أَدْفَأَ
Of camels, to exceed one hundred in number.
This is a specialized Classical usage applied to a camel herd.
- Lane · entry 819
أَدْفَأَ
In a Yemeni dialect, to dispatch a wounded person, that is, to put him to death quickly.
The usage is explicitly dialectal and applies to a wounded person.
- Lane · entry 819
دِفْء
A garment, covering, or other thing that renders a person warm.
The cited materials include wool, camel hair, and similar substances.
- Lane · entry 824
دِفْء
Shelter that protects from cold wind and provides warmth, such as the lee of a wall.
The word can denote a warm sheltered place rather than a garment or material.
- Lane · entry 824
دِفْء
A gift.
This is reported as an assumed tropical extension distinct from the ordinary sense of warmth.
- Lane · entry 824
دَفَأ
A forward bending or curvature of the upper back over the breast.
The usage is an anatomical or bodily description.
- Lane · entry 825
دَفِئ
Warmly clad; also warm or hot.
The adjective is applied in the cited usages to people, garments, places, and times, with corresponding feminine and plural forms.
- Lane · entry 826
دَفَئِيّ
Rain associated with the seasonal transition after heat has strengthened, around the period after spring and before or at the beginning of summer.
Authorities differ in the precise seasonal boundaries of the term.
- Lane · entry 829
دَفَئِيَّة
Provision or grain brought in the early part of the warm season or summer.
The term is used substantivally for a seasonal supply of provisions.
- Lane · entry 829
دَفَئِيّ
The offspring of sheep or goats born at the end of winter or during the associated seasonal period.
Some authorities extend the term to offspring produced at any time.
- Lane · entry 829
أَدْفَأُ
Curved in body.
The corresponding feminine form is also reported; spelling varies in some transmitted copies.
- Lane · entry 834
إِبِلٌ مُدْفَأَةٌ
Camels abundant in fur and fat, and thus warm through their covering; related forms may also denote a numerous herd whose members warm one another.
The description is applied to camels and is explained either by their own fur and fat or by the warmth generated when many are together.
- Lane · entry 836
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The single Quranic occurrence at 16:5 supports both the ordinary sense “warmth” and an explicitly reported interpretation referring to useful livestock products; the evidence does not require choosing only one of these readings.
The seasonal term دَفَئِيّ has differing reported boundaries, and the offspring usage is likewise attributed with differing scope.