Quranic root
كنز
k · n · z
The root denotes gathering things together into a compacted or accumulated store.
Its lexical development extends from pressing or packing material into a receptacle to storing wealth as treasure, with related extensions to fullness, firm flesh, and figurative stores.
- Maqāyīs · row 4045
- Lane · entry 28575
- Mufradāt · row 1272
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- Quran senses
- 9
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
كَنَزَ
kanaza
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 3 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.
To gather wealth and store it away; to hoard or lay it up.
In the Quran, used with wealth and property, including gold and silver, for retaining it as a stored accumulation.
- Lane · entry 28575
- Mufradāt · row 1272
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:34word 18
“hoard”
Quran 9:35word 14
“you hoarded”
كَنْزٌ
kanzun
- 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 treasure or store of accumulated wealth or property.
The Quran uses it for substantial stored wealth or valuables, whether described as a treasure or as treasures in the plural.
- Lane · entry 28577
- Mufradāt · row 1272
Selected Quran examples
A stored trove of knowledge or written learning.
In the Quranic account of the treasure beneath the wall, the term is interpreted as a deposit of knowledge or a written record rather than material gold or silver.
- Lane · entry 28577
- Mufradāt · row 1272
Selected Quran examples
Quran 18:82word 10
“a treasure”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 9:34يَكْنِزُونَhoard
- 9:35كَنَزْتُمْyou hoarded
- 9:35تَكْنِزُونَhoard
- 11:12كَنزٌa treasure
- 18:82كَنزٌۭa treasure
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 15 Classical meanings
كَنَزَ
To bury property or treasure in the earth, or conceal it in secret.
A physical concealment specialization of storing property.
- Lane · entry 28575
كَنَزَ
To press or pack a thing into a receptacle or the earth until it becomes compact.
Explicitly applied to dates and wheat as well as to things pressed by hand or foot.
- Lane · entry 28575
كَنَزَ
To fill a bag or skin very full.
The containers specifically mentioned include a bag and a skin containing milk or water.
- Lane · entry 28575
كَنَزَ
To stick a spear into the ground.
- Lane · entry 28575
اِكْتَنَزَ
To become gathered, compacted, or full.
Applied in the cited usages to packed dates or wheat, compact flesh, and a bag or skin that has become full.
- Lane · entry 28576
كَنْزٌ
Property on which the portion due in alms has not been paid.
A technical or figurative usage reported in traditional religious usage.
- Lane · entry 28577
كَنْزٌ
An abundant accumulation of coveted property, especially gold and silver.
The term may be applied to property gathered together and desired as a valuable possession.
- Lane · entry 28577
كَنْزٌ
A repository or hiding place in which property is kept, guarded, or buried.
Here the noun denotes the place or container holding the property, rather than the property itself.
- Lane · entry 28577
كَنْزٌ
Fat.
A rare poetic usage, reported as the only known instance of this meaning by the cited authority.
- Lane · entry 28577
كَنْزٌ
Figuratively, a stored-up reward or benefit reserved for its recipient.
Used of a reward kept in reserve, including reward in paradise; this is distinct from the Quranic knowledge interpretation.
- Lane · entry 28577
كَنَازٌ، كِنَازٌ
The time or season when dates are packed, and sometimes when wheat is stored.
A temporal noun referring to the activity or season of packing.
- Lane · entry 28579
كَنِيزٌ
Dates packed tightly in receptacles for winter.
- Lane · entry 28581
كَنَّازٌ
One who takes extraordinary pains to hoard gold and silver.
- Lane · entry 28582
مُكْتَنِزُ اللَّحْمِ
Compact, firm, and abundant in flesh; well-fleshed.
Used as a physical description of a body or flesh, including the cited animal, personal, and anatomical applications.
- Lane · entry 28585
مُكْتَنِزٌ
Richly stocked with useful contents, said of a book or writing.
A figurative application of compactly gathered contents to written material.
- Lane · entry 28585
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
One Lane passage reports the Quran citation for the knowledge interpretation in historical form as “xviii. 81.” This is not treated as a modern verse location; the example location used here follows the independently supplied QAC location 18:82 and the corresponding Quran-focused discussion.