Quranic root
قتر
q · t · r
A root oriented toward gathering, concentration, and constriction.
The semantic field develops from the narrow, enclosed covert of a hunter toward restricting expenditure or sustenance, while also including the concentrated smoke or scent produced by roasting and fumigation.
- Maqāyīs · row 3711
- 5
- 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.
قَتَرَ
qatara
- 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 be sparing in expenditure; to stint what is spent.
In the Quranic construction, it describes restrained spending, contrasted with extravagance.
- Lane · entry 7798
- Mufradāt · row 1157
Selected Quran examples
Quran 25:67word 7
“and are not stingy”
مُقْتِرٌ
muqtirun
- 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.
A person in straitened financial circumstances; one of limited means.
In the Quranic usage, it denotes the party whose means are restricted in the context of a financial obligation.
- Mufradāt · row 1157
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:236word 19
“the poor”
قَتَرٌ
qatarun
- 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.
Dust; a dusty covering.
In the Quranic usage, it is what overtakes or covers the faces of the blessed, in contrast with humiliation.
- Lane · entry 7805
Selected Quran examples
Quran 10:26word 8
“dust”
قَتَرَةٌ
qatarahun
- 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 dark, dust-like or smoke-like covering that overspreads the face.
In the Quranic usage, it denotes blackness or darkness on the face, closely associated with the lexicon of dust and smoke.
- Lane · entry 7805
- Mufradāt · row 1157
Selected Quran examples
Quran 80:41word 2
“darkness”
قَتُورٌ
qatūrun
- Part of speech
- Adjective
- 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.
Stingy or niggardly in expenditure; habitually withholding.
In the Quranic usage, it characterizes the human tendency toward withholding rather than a merely isolated act of restricted spending.
- Lane · entry 7811
- Mufradāt · row 1157
Selected Quran examples
Quran 17:100word 14
“stingy”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:236ٱلْمُقْتِرِthe poor
- 10:26قَتَرٌۭdust
- 17:100قَتُورًۭاstingy
- 25:67يَقْتُرُوا۟and are not stingy
- 80:41قَتَرَةٌdarkness
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 20 Classical meanings
قَتَرَ
To exhale or give off scent or smoke, especially of roasting meat, a cooking pot, burnt bone, or incense and aloeswood.
Also said of a fire that smokes.
- Lane · entry 7798
قَتَرَ
To be barely sufficient, especially of sustenance.
This lexical attribution is reported cautiously in the source.
- Lane · entry 7798
قَتَرَ
To make a person's sustenance strait or scant.
Used of restricting someone's provision; the source also records the corresponding passive restriction of means.
- Lane · entry 7798
قَتَّرَ
To raise or manipulate the scent called قُتَار: to make it perceptible, use scented meat to draw game, or fumigate to conceal a hunter's smell.
The construction covers both producing a lure-scent and masking a person's scent.
- Lane · entry 7799
قَتَّرَهُ
To throw or cast someone down on one side, including after piercing him with a spear.
Used with the object lying on one of its two sides.
- Lane · entry 20830
أَقْتَرَ
To fumigate oneself with aloeswood, or to make a fire smoke.
The fumigation and smoke-making uses belong to the derived Form IV branch.
- Lane · entry 7800
أَقْتَرَ
To become poor or needy, or to have one's property become small while some remains.
Describes a change into a state of reduced means.
- Lane · entry 7800
اِقْتَتَرَ
To conceal or hide oneself in a hunter's covert.
Especially used of hiding in a قُتْرَة in order to deceive or await game.
- Lane · entry 7802
قَتْرٌ
An amount of sustenance or expenditure barely sufficient to sustain life.
Refers to the scant amount itself rather than to the act of stinting.
- Lane · entry 7803
قُتْرٌ
A side, quarter, tract, or region; also either side of a person.
This is a dialectal or variant form in the lexical tradition and is also used for a dial.
- Lane · entry 7804
قُتُرٌ
Aloeswood used for fumigation.
The form is also recorded alongside variant forms of the same word.
- Lane · entry 7806
قُتْرَةٌ
A hunter's covert, hideout, or pit in which the hunter lies in wait for game.
It may be a reed booth or a pit dug for concealment and for preventing the hunter's scent from being detected.
- Lane · entry 7808
قُتْرَةٌ
A straitness of the means of subsistence.
This is a figurative extension of the noun's sense of a confined or narrow place.
- Lane · entry 7808
قُتَارٌ
The scent, smoke, or odor of roasting meat, cooked food, burnt bone, or aloeswood; also a person's smell.
The association with aloeswood is reported with differing explanations; the term is also extended to fat or flesh.
- Lane · entry 7810
قَتُورٌ
Barely sufficient sustenance.
This sense is reported tentatively in the source and is distinct from describing a person as niggardly.
- Lane · entry 7811
قَاتِرٌ
Flesh-meat exhaling its scent while roasting, especially through its greasiness.
Describes the meat as the source or bearer of the roasting odor.
- Lane · entry 7812
مُقْتِرٌ
One who fumigates oneself with aloeswood.
This is a Classical fumigation use of the form and is distinct from the Quranic sense of a person of limited means.
- Lane · entry 7815
كِبَاءٌ مُقَتَّرٌ
A kind of aloeswood prepared or made to exhale its odor.
Used in a descriptive expression for fumigating wood.
- Lane · entry 7816
إِبْنُ قِتْرَةَ
A small, quick snake.
A fixed lexical expression rather than an ordinary derived form of the root.
- Lane · entry 20831
- Mufradāt · row 1157
جَوْبٌ قَاتِرٌ
A well-proportioned shield of good dimensions.
A fixed descriptive expression.
- Lane · entry 20832
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The dust form قَتَرٌ and the face-covering form قَتَرَةٌ are closely related but remain separate because QAC identifies distinct Quranic lemmas and usages.
The senses of barely sufficient sustenance attached to قَتَرَ and قَتُورٌ are explicitly reported as doubtful or tentative in the Lane evidence.
The side or quarter meaning of قُتْرٌ is treated as a Classical lexical branch, although the root analysis identifies it as a substitution variant of قُطْر.