Quranic root
هدهد
h · d · h · d
The root is oriented toward breaking, crushing, or demolishing, with associated developments involving weakness, collapse, and forceful or resonant sounds.
The basic sense of breaking or pulling down extends metaphorically to debilitation and weakness, and to sounds produced by falling or impact. The reduplicated branch هدهد develops specialized uses for cooing, murmuring, rocking, and the hoopoe bird.
- Maqāyīs · row 4844
- 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.
هُدْهُد
hudhud
- 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.
The hoopoe, a well-known bird.
The conventional identification of the bird named in the Solomon narrative; the supplied Quran occurrence is at 27:20.
- Lane · entry 10260
Selected Quran examples
Quran 27:20word 8
“the hoopoe”
A cooing bird, including a pigeon or a bird resembling one.
An alternative lexicographical identification of the bird in 27:20; this reading differs from the conventional hoopoe identification.
- Lane · entry 10260
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 27:20ٱلْهُدْهُدَthe hoopoe
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 22 Classical meanings
هَدَّ
To demolish or pull down a building or similar structure, throwing it to the ground; to destroy violently or at once.
A transitive Form I verb, especially of buildings, walls, or comparable structures.
- Lane · entry 10250
هَدَّ
To break or crush; figuratively, to distress, overwhelm, or debilitate.
Includes both breaking a person’s strength and the figurative effect of a calamity or other event.
- Lane · entry 10250
هَدَّ
To become weak in body, extremely aged, or decrepit.
An intransitive Form I use describing physical weakening or advanced decrepitude.
- Lane · entry 10250
هَدَّ
To make a loud, harsh, or rumbling sound.
Recorded of a falling wall or mountain, rain falling from the sky, the sea murmuring, and a camel braying.
- Lane · entry 10250
هَدَّ
Excellent, hardy, strong, generous, or beautiful; an expression of admiration or wonder.
Used in praise of a person and in idiomatic exclamatory descriptions of outstanding qualities.
- Lane · entry 10250
- Lane · entry 10256
هَدَّدَ
To threaten someone, threaten them with punishment, or frighten and terrify them.
Form II transitive verb.
- Lane · entry 10251
اِنْهَدَّ
To fall down or collapse, becoming demolished with a vehement noise; of a mountain, to break down.
Form VII intransitive use, especially of buildings, walls, or mountains.
- Lane · entry 10253
اِسْتَهَدَّهُ
To regard someone as weak.
Form X transitive construction.
- Lane · entry 10254
هَدْهَدَ
To coo or make a murmuring, confused sound; of a camel, to bray.
A reduplicated verb used of birds and camels and their characteristic sounds.
- Lane · entry 10255
هَدْهَدَ
To rock or move a child in a cradle to induce sleep.
A reduplicated transitive use describing the soothing movement of a child.
- Lane · entry 10255
هَدْهَدَ
To send or throw a thing down from a high place to a lower one.
A reduplicated transitive construction involving downward movement.
- Lane · entry 10255
هَدٌّ
A weak or cowardly man; also extreme old age or decrepitude.
A nominal use covering weakness in a person and the condition of advanced decrepitude.
- Lane · entry 10256
هَدٌّ
A cough or harsh sound; also the braying of a camel.
A sound noun distinct from the homonymous noun denoting weakness.
- Lane · entry 10256
هَدَّةٌ
The sound of a wall or part of a mountain falling, or a violent sound caused by such a fall; also the sound of rain falling from the sky.
A noun for a crash or other forceful falling sound.
- Lane · entry 10258
هَدَّةٌ
A sinking or falling-in of the ground.
A nominal use denoting ground subsidence rather than its accompanying sound.
- Lane · entry 10258
هَدْهَدٌ
The voices or cries of jinn; a plural-like form without a singular.
A specialized nominal use referring collectively to supernatural voices or cries.
- Lane · entry 10259
هَدْهَدَةٌ
The murmuring or confused sound of pigeons cooing or of a camel braying; also a comparable rumbling sound.
A verbal noun used as a substantive for characteristic cooing, braying, or similar sounds.
- Lane · entry 10261
هُدَاهِدٌ
A stallion-camel that brays frequently among the she-camels but does not cover them.
A specialized noun for a particular behavior of a male camel.
- Lane · entry 10263
هَدِيدٌ
A voice, cry, sound, or noise.
A general sound noun.
- Lane · entry 10264
هَدِيدٌ
A threat issued from behind someone.
A specialized conventional use distinct from the general sound meaning.
- Lane · entry 10264
هَادٌّ
A murmuring sound from the sea, sometimes associated with an earthquake.
A specialized coastal sound perceived as coming from the direction of the sea.
- Lane · entry 10265
هَادَّةٌ
Thunder.
A specialized feminine noun for thunder and its sound.
- Lane · entry 10266
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The QAC evidence supplies one nominal occurrence, at 27:20:8. The alternative cooing-bird interpretation is a classical lexical reading of that same occurrence, not an additional Quran form.
Related Form I, derived, and reduplicated entries in the classical evidence are broader lexical material and do not add Quranic occurrences to هُدْهُد.