Quranic root
معز
m · ʿ · z
A root orientation toward firmness, hardness, toughness, and solidity.
The lexical family applies this orientation to hard, pebbly terrain and a strongly built constitution, while also including the goat-kind and specialized verbal developments connected with goats and earnestness.
- Maqāyīs · row 4414
- Mufradāt · row 1377
- Lane · entry 12830
- 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.
مَعْزٌ
maʿzun
- 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.
Goats; the goat kind, distinct from wool-bearing sheep.
Used as a collective or quasi-plural noun. The Quranic occurrence is in the expression “of the goats, two.”
- Lane · entry 12820
- Mufradāt · row 1377
Selected Quran examples
Quran 6:143word 7
“the goats”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 6:143ٱلْمَعْزِthe goats
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 10 Classical meanings
مَعِزَ
To be or become hard.
Used of a thing or of the ground.
- Lane · entry 12818
مَعَزَ
To separate goats from sheep.
A transitive verbal construction in which goats are set apart from sheep.
- Lane · entry 12818
أَمْعَزَ
To become abundant in goats; for goats to become numerous.
May be said of a man or a people whose goats become numerous, or of the goats themselves.
- Lane · entry 12819
مَاعِزٌ، مَاعِزَةٌ، مَعْزَةٌ
A single goat.
These forms serve as singular designations corresponding to the collective or quasi-plural مَعْزٌ, including designations for a male or female goat.
- Lane · entry 12820
- Lane · entry 12824
- Lane · entry 12829
مَاعِزٌ
A strongly built, sinewy man.
An adjectival description of a man's robust constitution.
- Mufradāt · row 1377
مَعَّازٌ
A possessor or master of goats.
A person characterized by possession or keeping of goats.
- Lane · entry 12828
مَاعِزٌ
Goat skin.
A concrete material sense distinct from the animal designation.
- Lane · entry 12829
أَمْعَزُ، مَعْزَاءُ
Hard, rugged, stony, or pebble-abundant ground; a place of this kind.
أَمْعَزُ is applied to a place and مَعْزَاءُ to land or ground; the terms may also be used substantively for rugged terrain.
- Lane · entry 12830
أُمْعُوزٌ
A gathered herd of gazelles or mountain-goats.
Classical descriptions vary as to whether the term applies to gazelles, mountain-goats, or both, and whether the herd begins at thirty or at a larger number.
- Lane · entry 12831
اِسْتَمْعَزَ
To become earnest or serious in an affair; to apply oneself resolutely.
Used with an affair or undertaking as its object of seriousness.
- Mufradāt · row 1377
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic form is the collective noun مَعْزٌ; the listed singular, verbal, adjectival, and derived uses are broader Classical Arabic evidence.
The scope and numerical definition of أُمْعُوزٌ vary across the cited classical descriptions.