Quranic root
مخر
m · kh · r
A root centered on splitting, cleaving, and opening a passage, especially through water.
The cleaving image is applied to ships and swimmers cutting through water, and to water coursing to land. It is extended analogically to taking in the wind with the nose and, in the supplied root analysis, to selecting the best from a group. Certain similarly shaped expressions are explicitly treated as belonging to other roots.
- Maqāyīs · row 4313
- Mufradāt · row 1351
- Lane · entry 12320
- Lane · entry 12321
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 2
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
مَاخِرَةٌ
mākhirahun
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
Ships that cleave or plough through water with their prows as they move.
The Quranic form is plural مَوَاخِرَ. Explanations include running through the water and, in one description, advancing and retreating under a single wind.
- Lane · entry 12320
- Lane · entry 12324
- Mufradāt · row 1351
Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:14word 15
“ploughing”
Quran 35:12word 23
“cleaving”
Ships whose running through the water produces an audible sound.
An alternative explanation of the plural Quranic usage, with the sound associated with wind-driven movement.
- Lane · entry 12320
- Lane · entry 12324
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 2 occurrencesBroader Classical Arabic meanings
Recorded for this root in the Classical lexicons beyond its Quran usage. These are secondary to the Quran senses above.
Show 6 Classical meanings
مَخَرَ
To cleave through a medium by moving through it; of a swimmer, to cut through water with the arms.
The verb is used of ships as well as swimmers, and descriptions of a ship may include running, facing the wind, or advancing and retreating.
- Lane · entry 12320
مَخْرٌ
To make a noise or sound, including the sound associated with movement through water.
This is listed as a lexical signification alongside cleaving.
- Lane · entry 12320
مَخْرُ الْمَاءِ لِلْأَرْضِ
The passage of water to or through land by coursing through it.
A nominal expression describing water reaching land by circulating through it.
- Mufradāt · row 1351
تَمَخَّرَ، اِمْتَخَرَ، اِسْتَمْخَرَ
To face or seek the wind, turning the nose toward it and sniffing it; by extension, to orient oneself toward a desired direction or object.
Used of animals and people, including turning toward pasture. In a reported sanitation instruction, it involves determining the wind's direction and then turning one's back rather than literally facing it.
- Lane · entry 12321
- Mufradāt · row 1351
مَاخُورٌ
A wine-shop or place associated with vintners; by extension, a gathering-place of immoral persons or a house that arouses suspicion.
The word's etymology is disputed in the evidence: it is described either as an Arabicized word or as an Arabic formation associated with people going to and fro.
- Lane · entry 12325
- Mufradāt · row 1351
مَاخُورٌ
A person who supervises such a place and directs others to it.
This is a personal sense of the same lexical item, distinct from the place that he manages.
- Lane · entry 12325
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane's printed Quran references use historical citation conventions and are not used to infer modern verse locations; the Quran examples here follow the independently supplied QAC locations.
The lexical affiliation of مَاخُورٌ is etymologically disputed in the supplied evidence; it is retained as a Classical Arabic lexical entry with that qualification.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
بَنَاتُ مَخْرٍ, reported as summer-forming clouds, is not assigned as a meaning of مخر because the supplied Maqayis evidence explicitly treats it as an ibdāl form whose أصل is بخر.
اليَمْخُورُ, reported in the Maqayis discussion as a tall man, is explicitly said there to fall outside this root's semantic باب and is therefore not included as a root meaning.