Quranic root
قوت
q · w · t
The root centers on sustaining, preserving, and having power or control over something. Its clearest concrete expression is food that sustains bodily life; its extended applications include provision, preservation, guardianship, and capacity.
The semantic field develops from holding and maintaining life through food and sustenance, and extends to supplying what sustains, preserving or guarding, and possessing power over a thing.
- Maqāyīs · row 3890
- Mufradāt · row 1218
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 4
- 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.
قُوت
qūt
- 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.
Food, sustenance, or provisions that sustain life.
The Quranic plural أَقْوَات refers to sustenance or provisions apportioned for the earth and its occupants.
- Lane · entry 9095
- Mufradāt · row 1218
Selected Quran examples
Quran 41:10word 10
“its sustenance”
مُقِيت
muqīt
- 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.
One who gives food, nourishment, or sustenance; a sustainer.
In divine description, it denotes one who supplies each being with what sustains it.
- Lane · entry 9100
- Mufradāt · row 1218
A preserver, protector, watcher, or witness over a thing.
In the Quranic divine description, the word is interpreted as one who preserves and watches over everything, and bears witness to it.
- Lane · entry 9100
- Mufradāt · row 1218
Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:85word 22
“a Keeper”
One possessing power or ability over a thing.
In the Quranic expression عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ مُقِيتًا, it is also interpreted as possessing power over everything.
- Lane · entry 9090
- Lane · entry 9100
- Mufradāt · row 1218
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 17 Classical meanings
قَاتَ
To feed, nourish, or sustain someone by providing food sufficient to maintain life.
May refer to supplying a person, household, family, or dependants with their needed provision.
- Lane · entry 9088
قَاتَ
To stint or restrict a household’s provision.
A usage associated with parsimony or poverty.
- Lane · entry 9088
قَاتَ
To measure or portion food; alternatively, to make small round cakes from grain.
Reported as variant interpretations of the expression قُوتُوا طَعَامَكُمْ; the wording is construction-specific and the interpretations are not presented as universal senses.
- Lane · entry 9088
أَقَاتَ
To provide someone with what sustains him.
A causative construction meaning to make available the food or provision on which someone subsists.
- Mufradāt · row 1218
أَقَاتَ
To keep, preserve, guard, or protect someone.
A transitive preservation or protection use distinct from supplying food.
- Lane · entry 9090
أَقَاتَ
To have power or ability to do, accomplish, attain, or compass a thing.
Takes عَلَى with the object of the action or achievement.
- Lane · entry 9090
تَقَوَّتَ
To nourish oneself or subsist on something; to make something one’s food and eat it.
May describe subsisting on only a small amount or on a specified thing.
- Lane · entry 9091
اِقْتَاتَ
To be fed, nourished, or sustained; to feed oneself or eat.
The verb may occur with بِـ or without it, including the construction يَقْتَاتُونَ الحَبَّ, “they eat grain.”
- Lane · entry 9092
اِقْتَاتَ
To consume or take away something little by little.
A figurative usage describing gradual, piecemeal removal or consumption.
- Lane · entry 9092
اِقْتَاتَ
For war to consume or take camels as provision.
A figurative expression in which camels are taken as payment of bloodwits.
- Lane · entry 9092
اِقْتَاتَ
To curtail or reduce speech.
An idiomatic figurative use, equivalent to speaking little.
- Lane · entry 9092
اِقْتَاتَ
To feed a fire with fuel or other aliment.
Used in an idiom for supplying a fire with fuel, including feeding it gently and little by little.
- Lane · entry 9092
اِسْتَقَاتَ
To ask someone for food or provisions.
A Form X request construction taking قُوت as the thing requested.
- Lane · entry 9093
قَات
A qat tree, Catha edulis; also a species of lettuce known by a compound name containing قَات.
The botanical uses refer to named plants rather than the sustenance noun قُوت.
- Lane · entry 9094
قَائِت
One who feeds; substantivized, what is sufficient of the means of subsistence.
The active participle may describe a feeder or, in the expression القَائِتُ مِنَ العَيْشِ, sufficient livelihood.
- Lane · entry 9099
قَائِت
An appellation of the lion.
An established epithet, not a general restriction on the ordinary active-participle meaning.
- Lane · entry 9099
مُقِيت
Acquainted with or knowledgeable about a thing.
A reported Arabic usage distinct from the Quranic divine descriptions of sustenance, preservation, and power.
- Lane · entry 9100
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
مُقِيت in Quran 4:85 has several lexically attested interpretive readings—sustainer, preserver or witness, and possessor of power—which are kept as distinct but related senses.
The reported expression قُوتُوا طَعَامَكُمْ has variant traditional interpretations and is therefore presented as a construction-specific classical usage rather than a general definition of the root.