Quranic root
غرف
gh · r · f
A semantically diverse root centered most clearly on scooping or taking up, especially water by hand, with established branches for the quantity taken, upper chambers, cutting, vegetation, and related implements or products.
The lexical family develops from the act and result of scooping water to the amount scooped and the tools used for it. Other established branches are not fully reducible to that image: they include cutting or clipping, upper chambers, dense vegetation, tanning materials, and abundant flowing water.
- Maqāyīs · row 3400
- Mufradāt · row 1045
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- Quran senses
- 7
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
اِغْتَرَفَ
āightarafa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form VIII
- Form
- VIII
- 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 scoop up or take water by hand.
In the Quranic construction, the verb describes taking a handful directly with one's hand.
- Mufradāt · row 1045
- Lane · entry 29127
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:249word 22
“takes”
غُرْفَة
ghurfah
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 6 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 quantity or handful of water scooped up by hand.
The noun denotes what has been scooped, rather than the act of scooping itself; in the Quran it occurs for a handful taken by hand.
- Mufradāt · row 1045
- Lane · entry 29134
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:249word 23
“(in the) hollow”
An upper chamber or elevated dwelling; in Quranic contexts, a lofty dwelling of Paradise.
The Quranic plural forms refer to elevated dwellings, including the dwellings prepared in Paradise. The term is also explained in Quranic interpretation as the highest places of Paradise or a name for Paradise.
- Mufradāt · row 1045
- Lane · entry 29134
Selected Quran examples
Quran 25:75word 3
“the Chamber”
Quran 29:58word 8
“lofty dwellings”
Quran 34:37word 22
“the high dwellings”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:249ٱغْتَرَفَtakes
- 2:249غُرْفَةًۢ(in the) hollow
- 25:75ٱلْغُرْفَةَthe Chamber
- 29:58غُرَفًۭاlofty dwellings
- 34:37ٱلْغُرُفَـٰتِthe high dwellings
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 32 Classical meanings
غَرَفَ
To cut or cut off; specifically, to clip a horse's forelock.
The forelock usage is a particular application of the cutting sense.
- Lane · entry 29127
غَرَفَ
To tan a hide with garf, a tanning plant or material.
- Lane · entry 29127
غَرَفَ
To put on a camel's head a rope or cord called غُرْفَة.
- Lane · entry 29127
غَرِفَتِ الإِبِلُ
Of camels: to suffer an abdominal complaint from eating garf.
This is an expression specifically describing the effect of eating the plant called garf.
- Lane · entry 29127
تَغَرَّفَنِي
To take away everything that someone has with him.
- Lane · entry 29128
اِنْغَرَفَ
To become cut or cut off.
This is an intransitive or passive-result construction describing a thing that has become severed.
- Lane · entry 29129
اِنْغَرَفَ
To become bent or broken.
Applied especially to a bone, branch, stick, or similar object; a branch may be broken without being completely severed.
- Lane · entry 29129
اِنْغَرَفَ
To die.
- Lane · entry 29129
غَرْفٌ
A species of tree whose leaves are used for tanning.
The branches are also reported in connection with making bows; descriptions of the tree and the precise tanning practice vary among authorities.
- Lane · entry 29131
غَرْفٌ
Skins tanned with the garf tree, or the tanning material or quantity prepared for treating such skins.
The term is reported both for the tanned skins and for material ladled from the tanning preparation; the lexical application varies in the transmitted explanations.
- Lane · entry 29131
غَرَفٌ
A name applied to several desert plants, including panic grass and broom- or reed-like vegetation.
The name is also applied to various other listed plant species, and to leaves used in tanning; the botanical identifications are not uniform.
- Lane · entry 29132
غَرْفَةٌ
A single act of scooping or lading out water by hand.
This vocalization denotes the act or occurrence, distinct from غُرْفَة, the quantity scooped.
- Lane · entry 29133
غَرْفَةٌ
A single act of cutting or clipping, including clipping a horse's forelock.
- Lane · entry 29133
غُرْفَةٌ
Some milk remaining in a vessel or udder.
This is a reported specialized usage of the same nominal form.
- Lane · entry 29134
غُرْفَةٌ
A lock or tuft of hair.
- Lane · entry 29134
غُرْفَةٌ
A rope or cord tied with a bow or double bow and put on a camel's head or hung around its neck.
The usage is reported as dialectal in Yemen.
- Lane · entry 29134
غِرْفَةٌ
A mode or manner of scooping or lading out water by hand.
This vocalization denotes the manner of performing the action, not the quantity taken.
- Lane · entry 29135
غِرْفَةٌ
A sandal.
Reported as a dialectal usage of Asad.
- Lane · entry 29135
غَرْفِيٌّ
Of a leather water- or milk-skin: tanned with the garf tree.
The adjective is also reported for a full water-skin, or, in an alternative explanation, one tanned with dates, arta, and salt.
- Lane · entry 29136
غِرَافٌ
A large measure of capacity.
The word is also used as the plural of غُرْفَة in its water-quantity sense.
- Lane · entry 29138
غَرُوفٌ
A well from which water is taken by hand.
- Lane · entry 29139
غَرُوفٌ
A large bucket that takes up much water.
- Lane · entry 29139
غَرِيفٌ
A dense, tangled growth of reeds, papyrus, halfa, or trees; also water in such a thicket.
The term is associated with an assemblage of dense vegetation, with regional variation in the plants included.
- Lane · entry 29140
غِرْيَفٌ
A species of soft or weak tree, or the papyrus plant.
- Lane · entry 29141
غَرِيفَةٌ
A dangling piece of leather, about a span long, attached to the lower part of a sword scabbard and sometimes notched or ornamented.
- Lane · entry 29143
غَرِيفَةٌ
A sandal, including an old or worn-out sandal.
Reported in the dialects of Banu Asad and Tayy.
- Lane · entry 29143
غَرَّافٌ
A river or running-water channel containing abundant water.
- Lane · entry 29144
غَرَّافٌ
Copious rain.
The sense is reported in a verse, though one transmission gives a different word for that verse.
- Lane · entry 29144
غَرَّافٌ
A horse wide in step and taking much ground with its legs.
- Lane · entry 29144
غَارِفَةٌ
A swift female camel; by extension, a swift horse or horseman.
The descriptions extend from the female camel to swift horses and a swift rider.
- Lane · entry 29145
غَارِفَةٌ
A clipped front-hair fringe or the clipping fashioned across the forehead.
The term is also explained as the clipper of a woman's front hair in the context of an affliction, or as a noun for the clipping itself.
- Lane · entry 29145
مِغْرَفَةٌ
A ladle or other utensil used for scooping water, food, or similar material.
The shorter form مِغْرَفٌ and the plural مَغَارِفُ are also reported.
- Lane · entry 29147
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quran Foundation gloss for 2:249:23 is “(in the) hollow”; the lexical evidence instead identifies غُرْفَة in that passage as the quantity or handful scooped by hand.
The copious-rain sense of غَرَّافٌ is reported with a variant transmission that the cited verse may contain عَزَّاف rather than غَرَّاف.