Quranic root
نفخ
n · f · kh
The root centers on expelling air and the resulting inflation or swelling, with extensions to elevation, vigor, and figurative pride.
The evidence connects blowing with physical inflation and swelling, then extends the imagery to elevated daylight, fertile spring growth, fatness, arrogance, and related bodily or environmental states.
- Maqāyīs · row 4704
- Mufradāt · row 1465
- Lane · entry 44129
- 2
- 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.
نَفَخَ
nafakha
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 19 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 blow air or wind into or onto something; in trumpet contexts, to produce the blast by blowing into the instrument.
Used for active blowing and passive being blown. Quranic constructions include blowing into a trumpet and blowing upon an object such as the heated iron in 18:96.
- Lane · entry 44129
- Mufradāt · row 1465
Selected Quran examples
Quran 18:96word 10
“Blow”
Quran 20:102word 2
“will be blown”
To breathe spirit into a created being.
A specialized construction with the spirit as what is breathed into the created being; the Quran applies it to the first creation and to the creation of Jesus.
- Mufradāt · row 1465
Selected Quran examples
Quran 15:29word 3
“and [I] breathed”
نَفْخَة
nafkhah
- 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.
A blast, specifically the blast of the resurrection trumpet.
In the Quranic occurrence, the noun denotes the eschatological trumpet blast rather than bodily inflation or an ordinary breath.
- Lane · entry 44135
Selected Quran examples
Quran 69:13word 5
“a blast”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 3:49فَأَنفُخُthen I breath
- 5:110فَتَنفُخُthen you breath
- 6:73يُنفَخُwill be blown
- 15:29وَنَفَخْتُand [I] breathed
- 18:96ٱنفُخُوا۟ ۖBlow
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 35 Classical meanings
نَفَخَ الشَّيْطَانُ فِي أَنْفِهِ
To incite someone to aspire to what is not his due.
An idiomatic, figurative expression describing the devil's blowing into a person's nose.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفَخَ شِدْقَيْهِ
To puff out the sides of the mouth in pride; to act arrogantly.
A figurative use of bodily inflation for affected pride.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفَخَهُ
To cause someone or something to become inflated or filled by food.
A transitive use describing the effect of food on the body.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفِخَ
To have wind-swollen testicles, or to have pasterns swollen with wind.
Applied to a man or horse for swollen testicles and to a beast of carriage for wind-swollen pasterns.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفَخَ
To emit intestinal gas or flatulence.
A bodily use describing the emission of abdominal wind.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفَخَتِ الرِّيحُ
For the wind to arrive suddenly.
An intransitive use applied to the sudden onset of wind.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفَخَتْ بِهِمُ الطَّرِيقُ
For a road to cast or bring travelers suddenly to a place.
A figurative extension from the wind's sudden movement.
- Lane · entry 44129
نَفَخَتِ الضُّحَى
For the morning or day to advance, with the sun becoming high.
The expression refers to the later morning, approximately an hour before noon.
- Lane · entry 44129
اِنْتَفَخَ
To become inflated, puffy, or swollen; to become filled by food.
The intransitive Form VIII counterpart of bodily or object inflation, including swelling from food.
- Lane · entry 44132
اِنْتِفَاخُ الأَهِلَّةِ
The swelling or growing large of the new moons.
A conventional expression used in an account of last-day signs.
- Lane · entry 44132
اِنْتَفَخَ عَلَيْهِ
To become puffed up against someone; to grow angry or behave angrily toward him.
A figurative Form VIII construction with عَلَى or لِ describing anger.
- Lane · entry 44132
نَفْخٌ
Flatulence.
The verbal noun used as a bodily noun.
- Lane · entry 44133
نَفْخٌ
Boastfulness, arrogance, or pride.
A figurative extension expressed also in the phrase ذُو نَفْخٍ, a person inflated with pride.
- Lane · entry 44133
نُفُخٌ
A youthful, full-bodied young person; specifically a young man, and without the feminine suffix, a damsel.
An archaic descriptive noun emphasizing youthful fullness or vigor.
- Lane · entry 44134
نَفْخَةٌ
An inflation of the belly or body, including a flatulent humor.
A bodily swelling or distension caused by food or another humor.
- Lane · entry 44135
نَفْخَةٌ
A slight odor.
Distinguished from نَفْحَةٌ, which denotes a more plentiful odor.
- Lane · entry 44135
نَفْخَةُ الشَّبَابِ / نَفْخَةُ الرَّبِيعِ
The prime or productive surge of youth or spring.
In the youth expression it is the chief part of youth; in the spring expression it is the phase when vegetation is produced or has reached its seasonal fullness.
- Lane · entry 44135
نُفْخَةٌ
A disease causing a horse's testicles to swell.
A veterinary use distinct from ordinary bodily inflation.
- Lane · entry 44135
نَفْخَاءُ
Elevated, soft, fertile, or tumid ground.
Applied to land with elevation and productive soil, including earth that breaks into pieces when trodden upon.
- Lane · entry 44136
نَفْخَاءُ
The upper part of the shank or tibia.
An anatomical noun.
- Lane · entry 44136
نَفِيخٌ
One employed to blow a fire.
An agent noun for a person tending a fire by blowing it.
- Lane · entry 44137
نُفَّاخٌ
A disease-caused inflation or humor arising in any part of the body.
A pathological bodily swelling or the humor producing it.
- Lane · entry 44138
نُفَّاخَةٌ
A bubble upon water.
A small inflated body formed on the surface of water.
- Lane · entry 44139
نُفَّاخَةٌ
The air bladder of a fish.
The inflated internal structure said to help the fish rise and move in the water.
- Lane · entry 44139
نُفَّاخَةٌ
A bladder or inflated cell of a plant.
Applied to a plant bladder and, in anatomical terminology, to a cell.
- Lane · entry 44139
مَا بِالدَّارِ نَافِخُ ضَرَمَةٍ
No one is in the house.
An idiom literally referring to there being no blower of a fire in the dwelling.
- Lane · entry 44140
نَافِخٌ حِضْنَيْهِ
A man puffed up and ready to cause mischief or harm.
An idiomatic description of someone inflating his sides in readiness for hostile action.
- Lane · entry 44140
أَنْفَخُ
Having wind-swollen testicles, or having pasterns swollen with wind.
Applied to a man or horse for swollen testicles and to a beast of carriage for affected pasterns.
- Lane · entry 44141
أُنْفُخَانٌ
A man full of flaccid fat or corpulent flesh.
A descriptive noun or adjective for fatness characterized as inflation.
- Lane · entry 44142
مِنْفَاخٌ
An instrument for blowing a fire or other object, especially a blacksmith's bellows.
The instrument into which one blows or with which a fire is blown.
- Lane · entry 44144
مِنْفَاخُ الرَّاعِي
A shepherd's reed pipe used to call camels together.
A specialized blowing instrument, distinct from a blacksmith's bellows.
- Lane · entry 44144
مَنَافِخُ الشَّيْطَانِ
The suggestions or promptings of the devil.
A figurative plural expression based on the devil's blowing or inflation.
- Lane · entry 44145
مَنْفُوخٌ
Big-bellied or fat.
An epithet for a body inflated or swollen with fat.
- Lane · entry 44146
مَنْفُوخٌ
A coward.
A figurative use explained through the image of one swelling out his lungs.
- Lane · entry 44146
مُنْتَفِخٌ
Puffed up or inflated with pride or anger.
A figurative Form VIII participle describing an emotionally inflated person.
- Lane · entry 44147
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Form I verb has two Quran-attested branches that should not be collapsed: blowing air into or onto an object, and breathing spirit into a created being.
Lane's historical Quran citation notation in the physical-blowing entry has not been converted into a modern verse location; modern examples use only independently supplied QAC locations.