Quranic root
قدح
q · d · ḥ
The root develops along two principal axes: making an incision, breach, or damaging penetration, and drawing or ladling something out.
The first axis includes striking to produce fire, corrosion, piercing, and figurative impugning; the second includes ladling from a vessel or well and the vessel or residue associated with that action. These root-level developments do not make every branch a meaning of the Quranic form.
- Maqāyīs · row 3732
- 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.
قَدْحٌ
qadḥun
- Part of speech
- Verbal 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.
Striking or producing fire, especially the striking that elicits sparks.
A verbal noun used in the Quranic construction قَدْحًا; in the supplied occurrence it denotes fire-producing striking.
- Lane · entry 7896
Selected Quran examples
Quran 100:2word 2
“striking”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 100:2قَدْحًۭاstriking
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 42 Classical meanings
قَدَحَ
To canker or corrode trees, wood, or teeth.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَ فِيهِ
To impair or attack someone's honor, reputation, genealogy, or standing; to blame, censure, or reproach; also, to impugn a witness's rectitude.
Used with expressions such as قَدَحَ فِي عِرْضِهِ, قَدَحَ فِي نَسَبِهِ, and قَدَحَ فِي عَدَالَتِهِ.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَ فِي القِدْحِ
To make a hole in the end of an arrow-shaft for insertion of the tang of its iron head.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَ خِتَامَ الخَابِيَةِ
To break the sealed clay on the mouth of a jar.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَ العَيْنَ
To couch an eye by extracting its corrupt fluid.
An operative medical use.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَ الشَّيْءُ فِي صَدْرِي
To make an impression in the bosom or mind.
Figurative usage.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَ
To ladle broth or another liquid out with a ladle, including from the bottom of a pot or well.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَحَتْ عَيْنُهُ
For an eye to sink or become depressed.
The eye is described as becoming like a قَدَح.
- Lane · entry 7896
قَدَّحَ فَرَسَهُ
To make a horse lean, lank, or slender.
The comparison is with the slenderness of an arrow-shaft.
- Lane · entry 7897
مُقَادَحَةٌ / قَادَحَهُ
Mutual reviling or contending in altercation, dispute, or litigation.
The noun denotes reciprocal foul or unseemly speech; the corresponding verb denotes contending or disputing with someone.
- Lane · entry 7898
تَقَاذَحَا
To contend with one another in altercation or dispute.
Reciprocal usage.
- Lane · entry 7900
اِقْتَدَحَ بِزَنْدِهِ
To seek or make use of another person's instrumentality or means.
Figurative use of making fire with another's fire-making implement.
- Lane · entry 7902
اِقْتَدَحَ الأَمْرَ
To consider and examine an affair in order to elicit its likely issue or result.
Figurative use.
- Lane · entry 7902
اِسْتَقْدَحَ زِنَادَهُ
To ask or demand the use of another person's instrumentality or means.
Figurative use based on asking another's fire-making implement to produce fire.
- Lane · entry 7903
قَدْحٌ
A canker or corrosion in trees or teeth; also rottenness, decay, corruption, or unsoundness, and a crack or fissure in wood.
The same noun is also used for blackness appearing in the teeth.
- Lane · entry 7904
قِدْحٌ
An arrow-shaft or pared rod before it is furnished with feathers and a head, or after it has been straightened and prepared for them.
The word especially includes an arrow used in the game of maysir; its plural is قِدَاحٌ.
- Lane · entry 7905
قَدَحٌ
A drinking-cup or bowl, large enough in one usage to satisfy the thirst of two men.
A well-known vessel; plural أَقْدَاحٌ.
- Lane · entry 7906
قَدَحٌ
A measure of capacity used in Egypt, containing two hundred and thirty-two dirhams.
A regional metrological use.
- Lane · entry 7906
قَدْحَةٌ
A single act of striking or producing fire.
- Lane · entry 7907
قَدْحَةٌ
An elicitation, by examination, of the real state or nature of a case or affair.
Figurative usage.
- Lane · entry 7907
قَدْحَةٌ
A single act of ladling broth or another liquid out.
- Lane · entry 7907
قُدْحَةٌ
A ladleful of broth.
The form is used in requests for a portion of broth.
- Lane · entry 7908
قِدْحَةٌ
The act of striking or producing fire with a fire-making implement.
The word may also be extended to the faculty of producing light or darkness.
- Lane · entry 7909
قِدْحَةٌ
Consideration and examination of an affair to elicit its possible issue or result.
Figurative usage.
- Lane · entry 7909
قَدُوحٌ
A common fly, described as though producing fire by rubbing its forelegs together.
Figurative or descriptive naming.
- Lane · entry 7910
قَدُوحٌ
A well whose water is drawn by hand in successive ladings.
- Lane · entry 7910
قُدُوحٌ
The pieces of wood belonging to a camel saddle.
A collective word without a singular.
- Lane · entry 7911
قَدِيحٌ
Broth, especially what remains at the bottom of a cooking-pot and is ladled out with difficulty.
- Lane · entry 7912
قِدَاحَةٌ
The craft of making vessels called أَقْدَاح.
- Lane · entry 7913
قَدَّاحٌ
An epithet for a fire-making stick or implement that produces much fire.
Applied especially to a زَنْد.
- Lane · entry 7914
قَدَّاحٌ
A maker of vessels called أَقْدَاح.
- Lane · entry 7914
قَدَّاحٌ
The blossoms of plants before they open, or the fresh, juicy tips, leaves, suckers, or offsets of plants.
A regional or dialectal botanical use.
- Lane · entry 7914
قَدَّاحَةٌ
A stone from which fire is struck.
- Lane · entry 7915
قَادِحٌ
One who ladles out; in a conventional description, water whose scant quantity keeps its ladler from sleeping.
The latter sense is preserved as an idiomatic description of very little water.
- Lane · entry 7916
قَادِحَةٌ
A canker-worm that corrodes trees and teeth.
Collective plural قَوَادِحُ is also attested.
- Lane · entry 7917
مِقْدَحٌ
A couching needle used in an eye operation.
A medical instrument.
- Lane · entry 7920
مِقْدَحٌ
An iron implement with which fire is struck.
- Lane · entry 7920
مِقْدَحٌ
A ladle.
- Lane · entry 7920
مُقَدَّحَةٌ
Lean, lank, or slender, especially of horses made slender like arrow-shafts.
Applied to horses.
- Lane · entry 7922
مُقَدِّحَةٌ
Having a sunken or depressed eye.
Applied to an eye and, by extension, to horses whose eyes are sunken.
- Lane · entry 7923
مُتَقَادِحٌ
Describing trees with soft, weak branches that flare with fire when moved by the wind but yield no useful fire when deliberately used for that purpose.
A literal descriptive use.
- Lane · entry 7926
مُتَقَادِحٌ
A figurative expression for someone lacking a sound claim to honor, respect, or good parentage, genealogy, or pedigree.
Figurative idiom based on the preceding tree description.
- Lane · entry 7926
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic occurrence is the inflected form قَدْحًا; it is normalized here to the verbal-noun citation form قَدْحٌ, despite the QAC generic noun tag.