Quranic root
غبن
gh · b · n
A hidden shortfall or weakness that leaves someone deprived, especially through an exchange or impaired judgment.
The root develops from concealed or diminished loss in dealings to overlooking, mistaken judgment, and weakness; related terms also name concealed bodily folds and things hidden within them.
- Maqāyīs · row 3375
- Mufradāt · row 1036
- 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.
تَغَابُنٌ
taghābunun
- Part of speech
- Verbal 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.
Mutual overreaching or mutual loss: the state in which the parties are exposed as having made the worse exchange; in يَوْمُ التَّغَابُنِ, the Day of Resurrection, final outcomes reveal who truly lost.
A Form VI verbal noun. In the Quranic designation يَوْمُ التَّغَابُنِ, the mutual loss is explained through the people of Paradise prevailing over the people of Hell, or through the disclosure that worldly valuations were mistaken.
- Lane · entry 28811
- Mufradāt · row 1036
Selected Quran examples
Quran 64:9word 7
“(of) mutual loss and gain”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 64:9ٱلتَّغَابُنِ ۗ(of) mutual loss and gain
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 17 Classical meanings
غَبَنَهُ / غُبِنَ
To cheat, deceive, overreach, or defraud someone in a sale or other exchange; to cause loss or disadvantage; passively, to be cheated, damaged, or overcome in buying and selling.
Used especially of a sale, price, or transaction, with غَبْنٌ as an associated verbal noun. The active and passive uses belong to the same transactional branch.
- Lane · entry 28808
غَبَنَهُ
To pass someone while inclining or bending so as to elude that person's notice.
A conventional use describing deliberate passage outside another person's observation.
- Lane · entry 28808
يَغْبِنُ عَقْلَكَ
In an idiomatic expression, to attribute defect or imperfection to someone's intellect.
Said of a person who has been cheated in a sale; the expression characterizes the resulting judgment as defective.
- Lane · entry 28808
غَبِنَ الشَّيْءَ / غَبِنَ فِيهِ
To overlook or forget something, be heedless or ignorant of it, make a mistake concerning it, or fail to recognize its state or qualities.
It may describe losing or forgetting one's judgment or opinion, or failing to know the qualities of a particular matter. A reported sale-related use meaning to be inadvertent is textually uncertain.
- Lane · entry 28808
غَبِنَ رَأْيَهُ
To be deficient or weak in one's judgment or opinion; for one's intelligence, sagacity, or mental acuity to fail.
This construction focuses on impaired judgment rather than on being cheated in a transaction.
- Lane · entry 28808
غَبَنَ الثَّوْبَ / غَبَنَ الدَّلْوَ
To fold or double a garment, or the edge of a leathern bucket, in order to shorten it; a garment may then be sewn.
Applied to a long garment or to the edge of a bucket.
- Lane · entry 28808
غَبَنَ الشَّيْءَ
To hide or conceal something in a fold or concealed place such as an armpit or groin; of food, to conceal or store it for a time of scarcity.
The storage use concerns keeping food or grain for a period of dearth or adversity.
- Lane · entry 28808
تَغَابَنَ
To withhold another person's due until that person is cheated, disadvantaged, or made to suffer loss.
A reported construction uses the preposition بِهِ; the transmitted alternative with لَهُ is treated as doubtful.
- Lane · entry 28811
اِسْتَغْبَنَهُ
Apparently, to regard someone as weak in judgment and therefore liable to be cheated or disadvantaged.
The usage is reported tentatively and is connected with the Form X construction.
- Lane · entry 28814
غَبَنٌ
Weakness and forgetfulness.
A nominal use associated with the mental weakness and oversight branch of the root.
- Lane · entry 28815
غَبَنٌ
A piece cut off from the extremity of a garment and thrown down or discarded.
A concrete noun referring to material removed from a garment's edge.
- Lane · entry 28815
غَبِينٌ
Weak in judgment or opinion, and by extension weak in intellect or religion.
An adjective describing deficient discernment or mental capacity.
- Lane · entry 28816
غَبَانَةٌ
Weakness of judgment or opinion.
A verbal noun naming the state of deficient judgment.
- Lane · entry 28817
غَبِينَةٌ
The act of cheating, deceiving, overreaching, or defrauding in selling or the like; the resulting detriment or loss.
A substantive derivative used especially of a sale, price, or comparable transaction.
- Lane · entry 28818
غَابِنٌ
Remiss or languid in work.
An adjective describing slackness or lack of energy in carrying out work.
- Lane · entry 28819
مَغْبِنٌ
A concealed fold or flexure of the skin, especially the groin, armpit, or a comparable place of creasing.
The singular of مَغَابِنُ; the term may refer generally to a place upon which the thigh is folded.
- Lane · entry 28820
مَغْبُونٌ
Cheated, defrauded, disadvantaged, or made to suffer loss.
The passive participle of the transactional Form I use.
- Lane · entry 28821
- Lane · entry 28808
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The reported sale-related reading of غَبَنَ فِي الْبَيْعِ as inadvertence is explicitly presented as possibly resulting from a textual confusion with the passive form; it is retained under the independently attested oversight branch.
The reported phrase involving غَيَنُوا النَّاسَ is not confidently assigned to this root because its transmitted form differs from غَبَنُوا.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
lane-unit:gbn:28808:g1:sub3: The TA note explains غَيَنُوا النَّاسَ as obtaining something before others and thereby preventing or overreaching them, but the form's differing initial radical leaves its attribution to غبن unresolved.