Quranic root
كفت
k · f · t
The root centers on gathering, drawing together, and bringing something within containment.
The evidence develops this orientation into holding or enclosing, drawing something toward oneself, contraction, redirection or return, forceful driving, and swift contracted movement.
- Maqāyīs · row 4013
- Mufradāt · row 1256
- 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.
كِفَات
kifāt
- Part of speech
- Verbal noun · substantivized 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.
An encompassing receptacle or place that gathers and holds things together; in the Quranic usage, the earth as the encompassing place of the living and the dead.
Used in the expression describing the earth's encompassing and gathering function. A grammatical analysis also treats the form as a verbal noun, but the attested semantic image is gathering and containment.
- Lane · entry 28360
- Mufradāt · row 1256
Selected Quran examples
Quran 77:25word 4
“a receptacle”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 77:25كِفَاتًاa receptacle
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 27 Classical meanings
كَفَتَ
To turn a thing over, reversing it from one side to the other.
- Lane · entry 28349
كَفَتَ
To turn someone away or divert him from his course, design, or desired objective; to withhold or restrain him from what he wants.
Used transitively with a person or with a phrase expressing the course, design, or desired object from which someone is diverted.
- Lane · entry 28349
كَفَتَ
To take someone, in the sense of bringing about or signifying his death.
Used of God taking a person to Himself.
- Lane · entry 28349
كَفَتَ
To hasten or move swiftly, with contracted movement in running or flight.
Applied especially to a bird or other flying or running creature; a solid-hoofed animal may contract its forelegs rapidly while running.
- Lane · entry 28349
كَفَتَ
To drive or urge someone on vehemently.
- Lane · entry 28349
- Mufradāt · row 1256
كَفَتَ
To draw a thing toward oneself, gathering, contracting, grasping, or taking hold of it.
The construction extends to drawing people together and confining them, gathering clothing together in prayer, and drawing the loose lower part of armor up toward oneself.
- Lane · entry 28349
- Mufradāt · row 1256
كَافَتَ
To contend with another in running or in a race.
- Lane · entry 28351
كِفَات / مُكَافَتَة
Sudden death.
Used in expressions meaning that someone died suddenly.
- Lane · entry 28351
اِنْكَفَتَ
To turn away, become diverted from a course or design, or return to one's abode.
The return construction is used with a destination such as one's dwelling.
- Lane · entry 28352
اِنْكَفَتَ
To become contracted or compact; of a garment, to be tucked up; of a person, to be compact in build; of a horse, to be lean, lank, or slender.
The cited uses apply the contraction branch to garments, bodily build, and the build or flesh of a horse.
- Lane · entry 28352
اِنْكَفَتَ
For a person's or thing's color to change.
- Lane · entry 28352
اِكْتَفَى
To take all of a person's property and draw it together to oneself.
Used with property or possessions as the object.
- Lane · entry 28353
كَفْتٌ
Quick or swift; light, active, agile, and slender.
Applied in the cited evidence to a man or a horse.
- Lane · entry 28355
كَفْتٌ
Quick or swift running; passing by or through quickly.
- Lane · entry 28355
كَفْتٌ
Death.
A figurative or transferred use of the verbal noun.
- Lane · entry 28355
كَفْتٌ
Bread without seasoning or accompanying savory food.
- Lane · entry 28355
كِفْتٌ
A small cooking pot.
- Lane · entry 28356
كِفْتٌ
An additional calamity or oppression added to an existing one.
An idiomatic and proverbial use, portraying a small pot placed beside a large one; it is applied to adding further oppression to someone already under pressure.
- Lane · entry 28356
كُفَتٌ
A horse that leaps, springs, or bounds with its whole body and limbs, so that it is difficult to seize or master.
- Lane · entry 28358
كفت
A particular herb.
The headword is reported without the syllabic points in the cited entry.
- Lane · entry 28359
كِفَات
Rapid flight, understood as the contraction or drawing in of the wing during flight.
A reported lexical interpretation of the term, explained through the action of contracting the wing; it is kept distinct from the supplied Quranic occurrence in which كِفَات denotes an encompassing receptacle.
- Mufradāt · row 1256
كَفِيتٌ
One who contends with another in running or in a race.
- Lane · entry 28361
كَفِيتٌ
Food or provision sufficient to sustain life; food gathered and prepared for use; by extension, the means of acquiring subsistence.
The cited evidence records several closely related explanations of the term, from sustaining food to provision or livelihood.
- Lane · entry 28361
كَفِيتٌ
Sexual potency or coition.
A reported interpretation of the term in which it denotes strength or capacity for coition.
- Lane · entry 28361
كَفِيتٌ
A traveller's provision-bag that retains everything placed in it without letting anything escape.
Used in the expression describing a provision-bag or travelling bag.
- Lane · entry 28361
الكَفَّات
The lion.
- Lane · entry 28362
مُكْفِتٌ
One who wears two coats of mail with a garment between them, or who draws up the skirt of a long coat of mail to free the lower part.
The armor is gathered upward by hooks or similar means, sometimes toward loops in its middle portion.
- Lane · entry 28363
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic form is understood lexically as an encompassing receptacle or place, while one grammatical analysis treats it as a verbal noun governing the following terms; the shared semantic core is gathering and containment.