Quranic root
غمض
gh · m · ḍ
A root oriented toward lowering, sinking inward, and becoming concealed or difficult to perceive.
From depressed or hidden places and things that become obscured, the root develops meanings of cognitive obscurity, the closing of the eyes, and figurative overlooking or making allowance for what is defective.
- Maqāyīs · row 3462
- 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.
أَغْمَضَ
ʾaghmaḍa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- 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 overlook a defect and accept something despite its poor quality; in a transaction, to make allowance for what is undesirable.
Figurative use derived from closing the eyes; the Quranic construction is أَنْ تُغْمِضُوا فِيهِ, referring to accepting a defective thing only by making such allowance.
- Lane · entry 29939
- Mufradāt · row 1070
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:267word 23
“(with) close(d) eyes”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:267تُغْمِضُوا۟(with) close(d) eyes
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 34 Classical meanings
غَمَضَ
To become unperceived, unapparent, hidden, or concealed; of a way of attaining what is right, become hidden or difficult to discern.
Used of things and of a path or means whose recognition or attainment is not apparent.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَضَ
To be obscure, abstruse, or not plain; of speech or an affair, to be difficult to understand or deal with.
Applied to speech, language, meanings, questions, and affairs that lack clarity or ease.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَضَ
Of land or a place, to be low or depressed.
The sense is associated with a depression that is not readily visible from a distance.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَضَ
To become sunk, embedded, or hidden in something, as an anklet in the leg or a sword in flesh.
Describes physical recession into or concealment by another substance.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَضَ
Of a house, to be set back from a common thoroughfare or street.
Describes a secluded or retired location.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَضَ
To go away into the land, disappear in it, or journey through it.
Used of a person who withdraws into or becomes lost within the country.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَضَ
To become small.
A separately attested, concise Classical usage.
- Lane · entry 29937
غَمَّضَ
To make speech or language obscure, abstruse, or not plain to the mind.
Causative Form II use applied specifically to making verbal expression difficult to understand.
- Lane · entry 29938
غَمَّضَ
To make the edge of a sword thin so that it becomes hidden in flesh when striking.
A technical physical use describing the shaping of a sword edge.
- Lane · entry 29938
أَغْمَضَ
To shut or close the eye or eyelids.
Used with the eye, eyelids, or both eyes; also used with عَلَى, عَنْ, or similar constructions for closing the eyes upon something.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To sleep, or to have a spell of sleep.
Occurs in expressions meaning that one has not slept or has not tasted sleep.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
Of lightning, to cease gleaming.
A figurative extension presented as resembling sleep.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To overlook, connive at, or pass over something while feigning not to see it; to show patience toward an offense.
Used figuratively with something heard, an evil action, or another matter that is deliberately disregarded; distinct from the transactional allowance expressed in the Quranic usage.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To carry out, accomplish, or persist in an affair despite knowing what it contains.
An assumed figurative use with عَلَى relating to continued application to an undertaking.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
Of a she-camel driven away from a watering place, to rush upon the driver with closed eyes and reach the water.
A specialized idiomatic description of a camel's determined movement toward water.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To embark on or undertake an affair blindly.
Figurative use emphasizing undertaking something without adequate regard for what it entails.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
Of a desert, to conceal people within it.
A figurative use in which the desert hides them through mirage and depressed terrain.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To consider or judge well, give a sound opinion, or examine minutely.
Used with النظر in figurative expressions concerning judgment or assessment.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
For the eye to despise a person; to regard someone with contempt.
A figurative use with a person as the object of the eye's unfavorable judgment.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To compete with someone in running and overtake him after having been overtaken.
A specialized usage describing reciprocal competition in a race.
- Lane · entry 29939
أَغْمَضَ
To close the eyelids of a dead person.
A causative funerary use applied to the eyes or eyelids of the deceased.
- Lane · entry 29939
اِنْغَمَضَ
Of the eye or eyes, to become closed or contracted.
The source distinguishes a probable sense of becoming closed from the related sense of becoming contracted.
- Lane · entry 29940
اِغْتَمَضَ
Of the eyes, to sleep.
Used in the expression that one's eyes have not slept.
- Lane · entry 29941
اِغْتَمَضَ
To come easily, without trouble or painstaking.
A figurative construction describing an event or matter that presents no difficulty.
- Lane · entry 29941
غَمِيضَةٌ
A fault or matter of blame imputable to someone.
Occurs in the expression مَا فِي هَذَا الأَمْرِ غَمِيضَةٌ, “there is no fault in this affair.”
- Lane · entry 29949
غَامِضٌ
Unperceived, hidden, or obscure; of speech, a meaning, or a question, abstruse or difficult to grasp.
Applied both to what is concealed from perception and to what is not plain to the mind.
- Lane · entry 29950
غَامِضٌ
Obscure or unknown in rank, quality, parentage, or relationship.
The relevant obscurity concerns a person's status or lineage, not merely the difficulty of a statement.
- Lane · entry 29950
غَامِضٌ
Of a man, obscure, without reputation, low, mean, or vile; also remiss in charge or in rushing upon an enemy.
The source attests both social evaluation and a specialized description of a man's deficiency in action.
- Lane · entry 29950
غَامِضٌ
Low or depressed, of land or a place.
Includes a place so depressed that what is in it cannot be seen.
- Lane · entry 29950
غَامِضٌ
Of an anklet, sunk or constricted in the leg; of an ankle-bone, concealed by flesh or fat; of a leg, thick or fat around it.
A physical and anatomical specialization concerning recession or concealment within the leg.
- Lane · entry 29950
غَامِضٌ
Of a house, set back from a common thoroughfare or street.
Describes a retired or secluded house.
- Lane · entry 29950
غَامِضٌ
A young camel; in the plural, camels not accustomed to drawing water.
A specialized nominal usage with a camel-related sense distinct from the adjective meaning obscure.
- Lane · entry 29950
مُغَمَّضَاتُ اللَّيْلِ
The darknesses of night.
A fixed plural expression for the layers or periods of nighttime darkness.
- Lane · entry 29953
المُغَمِّضَاتُ مِنَ الذُّنُوبِ
Sins or offenses committed with awareness while the offender feigns not to see them; according to another reported interpretation, minor or unapparent sins committed with uncertainty about their consequence.
A specialized plural expression; the transmitted interpretations differ between knowingly overlooking wrongdoing and small, indistinct offenses.
- Lane · entry 29954
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The public Quranic headword is normalized to the Form IV perfect أَغْمَضَ from the inflected QAC occurrence تُغْمِضُ.
The Quranic occurrence represents the figurative construction of overlooking a defect or making allowance for it; the literal eye-closing and other derived-form uses are listed separately as Classical Arabic meanings.
The transmitted interpretation of المُغَمِّضَاتُ مِنَ الذُّنُوبِ varies between knowingly overlooked offenses and minor, unapparent sins.