Quranic root
مرد
m · r · d
The root primarily orients around stripping something of an outer covering—such as peel, leaves, or hair—leaving it bare or smooth.
This orientation extends to leafless trees, barren land, beardlessness, smooth or polished construction, and figuratively to a person stripped of goodness and resistant to obedience. The food-softening branch is treated in the lexical evidence as related to the m-r-s root by substitution rather than as the central root development.
- Maqāyīs · row 4343
- Mufradāt · row 1357
- 4
- Quran-attested forms
- 5
- Quran senses
- 5
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
مَرَدَ
marada
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To become insolent, refractory, and rebellious; to turn away from obedience or good.
In the Quranic context, the verb describes people who have become deeply resistant to obedience, with hypocrisy as the associated course of conduct.
- Lane · entry 12505
- Mufradāt · row 1357
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:101word 9
“They persist”
To become habituated or inured to a condition, especially to persist in it.
With عَلَى and a following condition, as in مَرَدُوا عَلَى النِّفَاقِ, the construction is explained as becoming accustomed or hardened to hypocrisy; the same passage also carries the associated idea of persistence in that state.
- Lane · entry 12505
- Mufradāt · row 1357
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:101word 9
“They persist”
مَارِدٌ
māridun
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
Rebellious, insolent, and defiant of obedience; figuratively stripped of goodness.
An intensive epithet applied in the Quran to a devil, emphasizing resistance and rebellion rather than ordinary disobedience.
- Lane · entry 12516
- Mufradāt · row 1357
Selected Quran examples
Quran 37:7word 5
“rebellious”
مَرِيدٌ
marīdun
- Part of speech
- Adjective
- Quran occurrences
- 2 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.
Rebellious, insolent, and resistant to obedience; bereft of goodness.
The adjective characterizes a being marked by persistent rebellion and departure from good; in the Quran it is used in descriptions of satanic or idolatrous opposition.
- Lane · entry 12516
- Mufradāt · row 1357
Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:117word 11
“rebellious”
Quran 22:3word 12
“rebellious”
مُمَرَّدٌ
mumarradun
- Part of speech
- Passive participle
- 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.
Smoothed, polished, or made even.
The Quranic use describes a constructed surface or structure as smooth and polished; the participle reflects the causative action of making something smooth.
- Lane · entry 12506
- Mufradāt · row 1357
Selected Quran examples
Quran 27:44word 15
“made smooth”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 4:117مَّرِيدًۭاrebellious
- 9:101مَرَدُوا۟They persist
- 22:3مَّرِيدٍۢrebellious
- 27:44مُّمَرَّدٌۭmade smooth
- 37:7مَّارِدٍۢrebellious
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 24 Classical meanings
مَرَدَ
To soak, rub, mash, crumble, or otherwise soften food or another thing, especially in water.
Used of bread, grain, or similar material softened by soaking and working it with the hand; the evidence also includes crumbling food into small pieces.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرَدَ
To make a thing smooth or polished.
A surface-treatment use distinct from the food-softening usage.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرَدَ
For a child, to mouth or suck the breast.
The lexical evidence gives this as a specialized use of the verb with a nursing child as subject.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرِدَ
To keep eating softened dates prepared in milk.
A specialized verbal use associated with dates soaked in milk until soft.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرِدَ
To become bare of leaves or herbage.
Used of a branch losing its leaves or of land becoming nearly destitute of vegetation.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرِدَ
For a horse, to become without hair on the fetlock.
A specialized equine use.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرِدَ
For a youth or young man, to remain without a beard or facial hair.
The evidence concerns delayed or absent growth of the beard or cheek hair.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرُدَ
To be bad, corrupt, or morally wicked.
A reported synonymic explanation of the Form I verb, distinct from the more specific construction of becoming habituated to a condition.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرَدَ
To push or propel a boat, or to drive something vehemently.
The nautical use involves propelling a vessel with a مُرْدِيّ; the evidence also records forceful driving more generally.
- Lane · entry 12505
مَرَّدَ
To strip a branch of its leaves or peel.
Form II causatively describes removing the outer covering from a branch.
- Lane · entry 12506
مُمَرَّدٌ
A building made smooth and even, and described as tall or long or plastered with mud.
This is the broader Classical constructional use of the passive participle; the Quranic occurrence specifically attests the smooth or polished aspect.
- Lane · entry 12506
- Lane · entry 12518
مَرْدٌ
Crumbled bread or similar food moistened with broth.
A collective food noun for bread broken into small pieces and moistened; it is compared with ثَرِيدٌ.
- Lane · entry 12508
مَرْدٌ
The fresh, juicy fruit of the arak tree.
A specialized botanical noun; the evidence distinguishes it from the ripe fruit named كَبَاثٌ in some accounts.
- Lane · entry 12508
مُرْدِيٌّ
A pole or oar used to push or propel a boat.
A nautical implement, synonymous with an oar in one cited explanation.
- Lane · entry 12510
مَرَادٌ
The neck.
The plural reported for this anatomical noun is مَرَارِيدُ.
- Lane · entry 12511
مَرِيدٌ
A soft preparation of bread or dates soaked in water or milk and worked until flaccid; also water mixed with milk.
The preparation may be mashed, rubbed, or pressed by hand after soaking; the evidence includes both food and the liquid mixture.
- Lane · entry 12513
مَارِدٌ
Strong or powerful.
The epithet is explicitly applied to evil beings of humanity or the jinn and to animals; in such uses it can carry an intensive force.
- Lane · entry 12516
مَارِدٌ
Lofty or high.
Applied especially to a building.
- Lane · entry 12516
مَارِدٌ
One who often goes and comes because of briskness, liveliness, or sprightliness.
A characterization of active, lively movement.
- Lane · entry 12516
مَرْدَاءُ
Leafless or barren: of a tree or branch without leaves, or of level sand or land where little or nothing grows.
The same adjective is extended from bare vegetation to a plantless expanse of sand or ground.
- Lane · entry 12517
أَمْرَدُ
A beardless youth or man, especially one without beard or cheek hair.
This sense is applied to a male; the evidence distinguishes it from the feminine adjective used for a woman without pubic hair.
- Lane · entry 12517
مَرْدَاءُ
A woman without pubic hair.
A specialized feminine anatomical use.
- Lane · entry 12517
أَمْرَدُ
A horse without hair on the fetlock.
A specialized equine adjective.
- Lane · entry 12517
مُتَمَرِّدٌ
A mountain that presents obstacles to ascent.
Used in the expression جَبَلٌ مُتَمَرِّدٌ, describing a mountain that resists or obstructs the climber.
- Lane · entry 12519
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic construction مَرَدُوا عَلَى النِّفَاقِ supports both becoming habituated to hypocrisy and becoming refractory or turned away from good; these related but distinct interpretations are retained as separate senses.
The classical food-softening meanings are lexically recorded under this root, while the root-level etymological discussion treats them as related to مَرَسَ by substitution.