Quranic root
لعب
l · ʿ · b
The root centers on play, sport, and activity lacking a straightforward serious purpose; it also has a distinct branch for saliva and flowing secretions.
The lexical sources present play as action undertaken without a sound or purposeful objective, while Maqayis proposes the broader orientation of going without straightness. A separate established branch concerns saliva, plant mucilage, and analogous flowing or filmy substances.
- Maqāyīs · row 4177
- Mufradāt · row 1305
- 3
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- Quran senses
- 20
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
لَعِبَ
laʿiba
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 9 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 play, sport, amuse oneself, or engage in activity without a serious or purposeful aim.
Quranic Form I imperfect usage; the verb can describe ordinary play or frivolous activity contrasted with earnestness, without specifying a particular game.
- Lane · entry 9643
- Mufradāt · row 1305
Selected Quran examples
لَعِبٌ
laʿibun
- Part of speech
- Verbal noun
- Quran occurrences
- 8 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.
Play, amusement, or diversion regarded as a non-serious activity rather than purposeful action.
Quranic verbal-noun usage, including play or amusement contrasted with the purposeful reality of worldly or religious life.
- Lane · entry 9643
- Mufradāt · row 1305
Selected Quran examples
لَاعِبٌ
lāʿibun
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
One who plays, sports, or engages in frivolous amusement.
Quranic active-participle usage; it can characterize people as engaged in play or as acting without earnest purpose.
- Lane · entry 9660
- Mufradāt · row 1305
Selected Quran examples
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 5:57وَلَعِبًۭاand fun
- 5:58وَلَعِبًۭا ۚand fun
- 6:32لَعِبٌۭa play
- 6:70لَعِبًۭا(as) a play
- 6:91يَلْعَبُونَplaying
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 29 Classical meanings
لَعِبَ
To toy, dally, flirt, or wanton with another.
A conventional interpersonal use of the verb, including playful or amorous dalliance.
- Lane · entry 9643
لَعِبَتِ الرِّيحُ
Of the wind, to obliterate or efface the traces of a dwelling or place.
Figurative usage applied to wind acting on visible traces.
- Lane · entry 9643
لَعِبَ بِنَا المَوْجُ
Of waves, to toss people about without carrying them toward their intended destination.
Figurative description of the disorienting or unhelpful movement of waves.
- Lane · entry 9643
لَعَبَ / لَعِبَ
To salivate or drool; of a child, to emit a flow of saliva.
A distinct bodily-fluid sense of the verb, separate from play.
- Lane · entry 9643
أَلْعَبَهَا
To make someone play, or to bring someone something with which to play.
Causative Form IV construction; the supplied example uses a feminine object pronoun.
- Lane · entry 9645
تَلَعَّبَ
To play repeatedly or time after time.
Intensive or repeated Form V usage.
- Lane · entry 9646
اسْتَلْعَبَ
Of a palm tree, to produce unripe dates or put forth a spadix retaining some of its first fruit after the earlier produce has been cut off.
Specialized botanical usage.
- Lane · entry 9648
لَعِبٌ
A person who plays much or often; a habitual or great player.
An intensive adjectival or nominal specialization, not the ordinary Quranic verbal noun.
- Lane · entry 9651
لَعْبَةٌ
A turn in a game or play; a single act or round of playing.
The word can denote one discrete occurrence or turn within a game.
- Lane · entry 9653
لَعْبَةٌ
A particular medicine resembling suranjan and said to promote fattening.
Rare technical usage, distinct from the play-related noun.
- Lane · entry 9653
لُعْبَةٌ
A thing used for play, such as a game implement, toy, puppet, or effigy.
Includes both game equipment and an image or figure made for play.
- Lane · entry 9654
لُعْبَةٌ
A person with whom one plays or jokes; figuratively, a stupid person who becomes a laughing-stock.
A figurative personal use derived from treating someone as an object of amusement or ridicule.
- Lane · entry 9654
لُعْبَةٌ
The image seen in the black of the eye when an object faces it.
Specialized anatomical or optical usage.
- Lane · entry 9654
لِعْبَةٌ
A mode, manner, or style of playing or sporting.
Refers to the manner in which the activity is performed, not to a single turn or to an object used in play.
- Lane · entry 9655
لُعَابٌ
Saliva, slaver, or drivel flowing from the mouth.
The ordinary bodily-fluid noun; it may also describe accumulated saliva around the teeth.
- Lane · entry 9657
لُعَابٌ
Mucilage or a viscous secretion of plants.
Plant-fluid usage related to the sense of a flowing secretion.
- Lane · entry 9657
لُعَابُ النَّخْلِ
The honey or sweet fluid of the date palm.
Specialized expression for a date-palm secretion or product.
- Lane · entry 9657
لُعَابُ الشَّمْسِ
A filmy substance seen in the air during intense midday heat, resembling cobwebs; by some accounts, a mirage.
The sources distinguish this phenomenon from the ordinary midday mirage, while reporting both descriptions.
- Lane · entry 9657
لَعُوبٌ
Playful, gamesome, or coquettishly flirtatious.
An intensive adjective used in the supplied expression for a woman who displays affected coyness.
- Lane · entry 9658
لَعَّابٌ
A player or gamer by profession or occupation.
An intensive occupational noun, indicating that playing is the person's business.
- Lane · entry 9659
لَاعِبٌ
One who takes another person's property as a prank in order to vex or anger its owner, without intending theft.
A special use in which the action is playful with respect to theft but serious in its intention to annoy.
- Lane · entry 9660
أُلْعُوبَةٌ
A thing with which one plays, such as a toy or game implement.
The same form is also recorded as a verbal noun of لَعِبَ.
- Lane · entry 9661
مَلْعَبٌ
A place for playing, sporting, gaming, or performing plays.
Can denote a physical venue or playing ground.
- Lane · entry 9663
مَلَاعِبُ الرِّيحِ
The courses or places where the wind blows or has blown vehemently.
Figurative plural expression, equating the wind's courses with its playing places.
- Lane · entry 9663
مَلَاعِبُ الجِنِّ
A bewildering place in which a person does not know where he is.
Idiomatic figurative expression, literally “the playing places of the jinn.”
- Lane · entry 9663
مُلْعِبَةٌ
A sleeveless garment in which a boy plays.
Specialized clothing term.
- Lane · entry 9664
مُلَعِّبٌ
Exuding mucilage; applied to a plant.
Figurative botanical adjective likening the plant's secretion to a foolish person's dribbling.
- Lane · entry 9665
مُلَاعِبُ ظِلِّهِ
A desert bird noted for the swiftness with which it pounces down.
Fixed bird-name expression, literally “one who plays with his shadow.”
- Lane · entry 9666
مَلْعُوبٌ
Of teeth or front teeth, having saliva or drivel upon or around them.
Specialized passive-participial description of teeth affected by saliva.
- Lane · entry 9667
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic nominal group is presented as لَعِبٌ, while Lane also records related verbal-noun vocalizations such as لَعْبٌ and لِعْبٌ; those Classical variants are not additional Quranic form groups.
The Quranic active-participle group is morphologically reported by QAC as a nominal group but is normalized here to the singular citation form لَاعِبٌ.