Quranic root
جحم
j · ḥ · m
The root centers on intense heat, vehement blazing, and the resulting sense of fiery intensity.
The fiery sense extends to the Qur'anic name جَحِيم for Hellfire, to intensely hot places and the vehemence of battle, and metaphorically to glowing or forcefully opened eyes, anger, desire, and constriction of disposition.
- Maqāyīs · row 1094
- Mufradāt · row 232
- Lane · entry 46094
- Lane · entry 46096
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 26
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
جَحِيم
jaḥīm
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 26 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 vehemently blazing or great fire.
In the Quran, the word can evoke the fire's intense blazing character, including in renderings such as “the blazing Fire.”
- Lane · entry 46094
- Mufradāt · row 232
Selected Quran examples
Quran 37:97word 7
“the blazing Fire”
The Hellfire; the fire of Hell.
Used in the Quran as the designation of the eschatological fire of punishment, often with the definite article but also in indefinite constructions.
- Lane · entry 46094
Selected Quran examples
Quran 102:6word 2
“the Hellfire”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:119ٱلْجَحِيمِ(of) the blazing Fire
- 5:10ٱلْجَحِيمِ(of) the Hellfire
- 5:86ٱلْجَحِيمِ(of) the Hellfire
- 9:113ٱلْجَحِيمِ(of) the Hellfire
- 22:51ٱلْجَحِيمِ(of) the Hellfire
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 18 Classical meanings
جَحُمَتِ النَّارُ / جَحِمَتِ النَّارُ
Of fire: to burn, burn up, blaze, or become vehement, with many live coals and much flame.
The same description can be applied to war when it becomes vehement.
- Lane · entry 46088
جَحَمَ
To kindle a fire; to make it burn, blaze, or flame fiercely.
A transitive Form I use referring to causing the fire to burn.
- Lane · entry 46088
أَجْحَمَ عَنْهُ
To refrain, desist, abstain, or draw back from something; also, in contrary usage, to advance or go forward.
The retreating sense is reported as a rare dialectal variant of أَحْجَمَ, while opposed usage is also recorded.
- Lane · entry 46089
أَجْحَمَ فُلَانًا
To be near destroying or killing someone.
This is a separate transitive construction from أَجْحَمَ عَنْهُ.
- Lane · entry 46089
تَجَحَّمَ
To burn with vehement desire, covetousness, or niggardliness.
A figurative Form V use expressing inward fiery intensity.
- Lane · entry 46090
تَجَحَّمَ
To become straitened in disposition; to become difficult or constricted toward others.
The construction تَجَحَّمَ عَلَيْنَا is explained as becoming straitened in disposition against us.
- Lane · entry 46090
جَحْمَةٌ
The intense burning, blazing, or flaming of fire; also an epithet of fire because of its redness.
The redness is presented as a characteristic associated with vehemently burning fire.
- Lane · entry 46092
جَحْمَةٌ
An eye, especially a glowing or fiery eye; the two eyes of a lion are called جَحْمَتَا الأَسَدِ.
This eye sense is distinct from the fire-related noun جَحْمَةٌ.
- Maqāyīs · row 1094
جَحِيمٌ
A fire with flames rising one above another, abundant live coals, or the form of a great fire in a pit.
These are broader Classical descriptions of the fire-name beyond the general Quranic designation of Hellfire.
- Lane · entry 46094
جَحَّامٌ
Niggardly, tenacious, stingy, penurious, or avaricious.
The adjective is connected with the straitness and vehemence of war.
- Lane · entry 46095
جُحَامٌ
An eye disease that causes the eyes to swell.
A technical or medical Classical usage.
- Maqāyīs · row 1094
جَحَّمَ
To open the eyes wide in a fixed stare; to direct an intense gaze at someone.
The expression جَحَّمَنِي بِعَيْنِهِ means that he fixed an intense gaze on me.
- Maqāyīs · row 1094
جَاحِمَةٌ
A staring or intensely open eye.
This is the eye-related use of the feminine form, distinct from its fire-related use.
- Maqāyīs · row 1094
أَجْحَمُ / جَحْمَاءُ
Having eyes that are intensely red and wide.
جَحْمَاءُ is the feminine form; the description concerns the eyes' redness and breadth, not the person's gender as a semantic restriction.
- Maqāyīs · row 1094
جَاحِمٌ
Live coals burning or blazing fiercely; also a place that is intensely hot.
The expression may be used tropically of death by likening it to a fiercely burning fire.
- Lane · entry 46096
جَاحِمُ الحَرْبِ
The main or thick part of a battle; its straitness, vehemence, or the intensity of fighting and slaughter.
The expression اِصْطَلَى بِجَاحِمِ الحَرْبِ means to experience the heat or vehemence of battle.
- Lane · entry 46096
الجَاحِمَةُ
Fire, or fire burning, blazing, or flaming fiercely.
A feminine fire epithet related to intense blazing.
- Lane · entry 46096
جَحَمَ وَجْهُهُ
Of the face, to blaze or become flushed from intense anger.
A figurative extension from the heat and upsurge of a blazing fire.
- Mufradāt · row 232
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
أَجْحَمَ عَنْهُ is reported with opposed meanings: withdrawal or advance. The withdrawal sense is explicitly treated as a rare dialectal variant related to أَحْجَمَ and is not part of the Quranic noun جَحِيم.