Quranic root
دفع
d · f · ʿ
The root centers on pushing something aside, removing it from a position, or turning it back.
From physical propulsion and removal develop the senses of repelling harm, defending, delivering something onward to its recipient, mutual pushing, and forceful movement.
- Maqāyīs · row 1785
- 4
- Quran-attested forms
- 5
- Quran senses
- 10
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
دَفَعَ
dafaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To push, drive, repel, remove, or turn back; to avert something harmful.
With عَنْ, the construction expresses averting harm or defending against it. The Quranic forms include commands to repel or ward off and a usage translated as defending.
- Lane · entry 851
Selected Quran examples
To give, hand over, restore, or deliver something to its rightful recipient.
With إِلَى, the construction means to give or deliver to someone; this includes handing over property or a trust.
- Lane · entry 851
- Mufradāt · row 475
Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:6word 11
“then deliver”
دَافَعَ
dāfaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form III
- Form
- III
- 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 defend or protect by actively repelling harm or attack.
Used with عَنْ for defending or protecting someone from harm; the Quranic usage presents defense as forceful repulsion.
- Mufradāt · row 475
- Lane · entry 851
Selected Quran examples
Quran 22:38word 3
“defends”
دَافِعٌ
dāfiʿun
- 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.
A repeller, warder-off, or defender; one who prevents something from reaching or affecting another.
The Quranic occurrences use the word in negated constructions for there being no repeller or defender against an event.
- Lane · entry 865
- Mufradāt · row 475
Selected Quran examples
Quran 52:8word 4
“preventer”
Quran 70:2word 4
“any preventer”
دَفْعٌ
dafʿun
- Part of speech
- Verbal noun
- 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.
Repelling, driving back, or checking an opposing force or people.
In the Quranic construction of God’s دفع of people by means of others, the noun denotes the checking or prevention of aggression and disorder.
- Lane · entry 851
- Mufradāt · row 475
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:251word 15
“(for the) repelling”
Quran 22:40word 13
“Allah checks”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:251دَفْعُ(for the) repelling
- 3:167ٱدْفَعُوا۟ ۖdefend
- 4:6فَٱدْفَعُوٓا۟then deliver
- 4:6دَفَعْتُمْyou deliver
- 22:38يُدَٰفِعُdefends
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 45 Classical meanings
دَفْعَةٌ
A single push, thrust, propulsion, or pouring.
A unitary action or quantity derived from the Form I action; it can refer to one act of pushing or one outpouring from a vessel.
- Lane · entry 851
- Lane · entry 859
دَفَعَ
Of a ewe, she-goat, or she-camel: to secrete the first milk in the udder shortly before giving birth.
The expression refers specifically to the pre-parturition accumulation or secretion of milk.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To be driven away or pass from one party to another.
Used in an intransitive or quasi-passive construction for something that departs from one group and is transferred or driven toward another.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To rebut, refute, or repel a statement with an argument, allegation, or proof.
Used with speech, a claim, or an argument as its object.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To leave someone or something alone, sparing it from interference.
An imperative expression meaning to desist from taking or troubling the object.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
Of water or a torrent: to pour or gush forth.
Used in an intransitive construction in which the water is understood as propelling itself forward.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To press or push forward, especially in running.
The subject is understood to propel itself onward through continued exertion.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
Of a people or company: to come or arrive all at once.
The collective body is treated as arriving in a single movement.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To reach or lead to a place.
With إِلَى, the verb may describe a person reaching a destination or a road leading to it.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To depart from, leave, or journey away from a place.
The construction may describe a person leaving a location or urging a riding animal onward.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَعَ
To return.
A reported extended use of the Form I verb.
- Lane · entry 851
دَفَّعَ
To drive, compel, or necessitate someone to undertake or resort to something.
The destination or resulting action is expressed with إِلَى.
- Lane · entry 852
دَفَّعَ
To render someone abject, contemptible, or poor, as though fit to be driven away.
A causative or intensive Form II use describing the production of a degraded social state.
- Lane · entry 852
دَفَّعَ
To straighten or make a bow even.
A specialized technical use applied to a bow.
- Lane · entry 852
مُدَافَعَةٌ
Contending or striving with another to push, repel, or push against one another.
The Form III verbal noun can denote mutual physical resistance and is also often used for ordinary pushing or repelling.
- Lane · entry 853
دَافَعَ
To delay, defer, or put someone off concerning a right or due.
The construction describes repeated postponement of delivering what is owed.
- Lane · entry 853
دَافَعَ
To devote oneself to an affair and persist or exert oneself in it.
An extended Form III use emphasizing continued application and perseverance.
- Lane · entry 853
تَدَافَعُوا
To push, repel, or jostle one another, or to pass a thing or person from one to another.
The Form VI reciprocal construction may describe mutual resistance in conflict or a group’s repeated refusal to accept responsibility for an object or guest.
- Lane · entry 855
تَدَافَعَ
Of two statements or sentences: to oppose, conflict with, or contradict one another.
A figurative reciprocal use applied to mutually incompatible propositions.
- Lane · entry 855
تَدَافَعَ
To move or continue by successive impulses, one part propelling the next.
Used of a torrent or of a horse’s running when motion proceeds in successive surges.
- Lane · entry 855
اِنْدَفَعَ
To become propelled, driven, thrust, or carried away or onward.
The Form VII verb is chiefly intransitive or quasi-passive and may describe movement away from a position or forward with impetus.
- Lane · entry 856
اِنْدَفَعَ
To launch into, enter upon, or break forth into discourse or another activity.
Used with فِي for entering discourse, recitation, laughter, or a comparable activity with sudden momentum.
- Lane · entry 856
اِنْدَفَعَ
To fall eagerly to eating.
A specialized construction with food as the activity entered upon.
- Lane · entry 856
اِنْدَفَعَ
To proceed in an affair with penetrating energy, vigor, and effectiveness.
Used with فِي for vigorous engagement in an undertaking.
- Lane · entry 856
اِسْتَدْفَعَ
To ask or beg for the repelling of evils.
The Form X construction expresses seeking the removal or averting of harm, especially by supplication.
- Lane · entry 857
دَفْعَةٌ
A body or party of people arriving at once.
A collective arrival treated as one incoming movement.
- Lane · entry 859
دَفْعَةٌ
A single uninterrupted burst or course of running.
An extended unitary-use noun for one continuous exertion or rush.
- Lane · entry 859
دُفْعَةٌ
A quantity that pours forth at once: a gush, shower, fall, or rush of liquid, and by extension a surge of a torrent, troops, or night.
The noun denotes a discrete mass or surge issuing without interruption.
- Lane · entry 860
دُفْعَةٌ
A portion or allotment of property that is given.
A distributive use referring to one share or payment.
- Lane · entry 860
دِفَاعُ
A proper name for a ewe.
The name is explained by the animal’s pushing its thigh from side to side because of bulkiness.
- Lane · entry 861
دَفُوعٌ
One who or something that pushes, propels, repels, or defends vehemently.
Applied to a forceful person; of a she-camel, it can describe one that kicks backward when milked.
- Lane · entry 862
دَفَّاعٌ
One who moves a bone aside in a bowl to make room for a piece of meat.
An idiomatic description of the action of putting an obstacle aside.
- Lane · entry 863
دُفَّاعٌ
A great surging mass or quantity, especially of water or people; a great force that propels another.
Used of waves, torrents, seas, or a large crowd advancing in a pressing mass.
- Lane · entry 864
دَافِعٌ
Of a ewe, she-goat, or she-camel: one that secretes the first milk in its udder shortly before giving birth.
A specialized active-participle use describing pre-parturition milk accumulation.
- Lane · entry 865
دَافِعَةٌ
A lower watercourse or tributary channel that pours into another watercourse.
The noun denotes a subordinate channel or the lower part where water descends into a valley or another channel.
- Lane · entry 866
مَدْفَعٌ
A channel or lower part of a valley through which water runs and disperses.
It may denote a watercourse or the outlet where a torrent pours forth.
- Lane · entry 867
مِدْفَعٌ
An instrument for pushing, propelling, or repelling.
The term includes specialized instruments such as a cannon and an instrument used by midwives to protrude a fetus.
- Lane · entry 868
مِدْفَعٌ
A forceful or strongly supporting thing.
Used intensively in the expression رُكْنٌ مِدْفَعٌ, a strong corner or support.
- Lane · entry 868
مُدَفَّعٌ
Of a camel: one held in high estimation and spared from being ridden or loaded.
When brought near a load, the valued camel is sent back in order to preserve it.
- Lane · entry 869
مُدَفَّعٌ
Of a camel: one held in low estimation and sent back as despised.
This is the contrary camel-use to the honorific sense; the two values are explicitly reported as opposites.
- Lane · entry 869
مُدَفَّعٌ
A poor, abject, or despised person whom people repel or pass from one to another.
It may describe someone rejected by relatives or a guest whom members of a tribe each turn away to the next person.
- Lane · entry 869
مُدَفَّعٌ
Driven, compelled, or necessitated to undertake or resort to something.
The construction expresses being forced toward an action or course of recourse.
- Lane · entry 869
غَيْرُ مُدَافَعٍ
Unopposed in authority; not jostled, challenged, or displaced from leadership.
Used of a chief whose position is not contested.
- Lane · entry 871
المُدَافِعُ
The lion.
A lexicalized epithet or name derived from forceful resistance or defense.
- Lane · entry 872
مُتَدَافِعٌ
Of a saying: self-contradictory, with one part opposing another.
A figurative participial construction applied to internally conflicting speech.
- Lane · entry 874
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane’s printed Quran citations use historical numbering and are not converted into modern verse locations; modern Quran locations and examples here follow the supplied QAC data.
Several Classical meanings are specialized or figurative extensions and should not be inferred as meanings of every Quranic form.