Quranic root
رضع
r · ḍ · ʿ
The root denotes drinking milk directly from an udder or breast, especially an infant's suckling.
From literal suckling, the lexical family extends to nursing and wet-nursing, foster kinship established through nursing, descriptions of suckling animals, and several figurative uses associated with secretive or mean behavior.
- Maqāyīs · row 2052
- Mufradāt · row 556
- 6
- Quran-attested forms
- 7
- Quran senses
- 11
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
رَضِعَ
raḍiʿa
- 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 suckle; to drink milk from the breast, and in the Quranic nursing construction, to nurse a child.
The supplied Quran occurrence is the imperfect form in the construction of mothers nursing their children. Classical sources record رَضَعَ and رَضِعَ as dialectally varying Form I citations.
- Lane · entry 23517
- Mufradāt · row 556
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:233word 2
“shall suckle”
أَرْضَعَ
ʾarḍaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- Quran occurrences
- 5 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 suckle or nurse a child; to provide a child with nursing.
Used transitively with the child as object and of a woman performing the nursing. The Quranic forms include perfect, imperfect, and imperative inflections; these are one lexical sense.
- Lane · entry 23519
- Mufradāt · row 556
Selected Quran examples
اِسْتَرْضَعَ
āistarḍaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form X
- Form
- X
- 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 seek or request a wet nurse for a child; to ask a woman to suckle the child.
The Quranic construction may treat the child as the object of the request, with the woman who will nurse understood as the requested agent.
- Lane · entry 23522
- Mufradāt · row 556
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:233word 47
“ask another women to suckle”
مُرْضِعٌ
murḍiʿun
- Part of speech
- Active participle (substantivized; plural in Quran)
- 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 wet nurse; a woman who has a child to suckle.
The Quranic occurrence is the plural مَرَاضِعُ, used substantively for women who may nurse a child. The singular citation is normalized from the supported active-participial family.
- Lane · entry 23535
Selected Quran examples
Quran 28:12word 3
“the wet nurses”
مُرْضِعَةٌ
murḍiʿahun
- 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 woman actively suckling a child.
This feminine active participle emphasizes the nursing action itself, especially the woman with the child's teat in her mouth, rather than merely the state of having a nursing child.
- Lane · entry 23535
- Maqāyīs · row 2052
Selected Quran examples
Quran 22:2word 5
“nursing mother”
رَضَاعَةٌ
raḍāʿahun
- Part of speech
- Verbal noun
- 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.
Suckling; breastfeeding or the period of nursing an infant.
Used for the act or completion of nursing, including the nursing period referred to in the Quranic family-law context.
- Lane · entry 23517
- Mufradāt · row 556
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:233word 10
“the suckling”
Fosterage or foster kinship established through suckling.
Used in expressions for relationships and legal kinship created by nursing, including the corresponding marriage restrictions.
- Lane · entry 23517
- Mufradāt · row 556
Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:23word 17
“the nursing”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:233يُرْضِعْنَshall suckle
- 2:233ٱلرَّضَاعَةَ ۚthe suckling
- 2:233تَسْتَرْضِعُوٓا۟ask another women to suckle
- 4:23أَرْضَعْنَكُمْnursed you
- 4:23ٱلرَّضَـٰعَةِthe nursing
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 30 Classical meanings
رَضُعَ / رَاضِعٌ
To be mean, sordid, or ignoble; meanness or sordidness.
A figurative development from secretly sucking an animal's teat rather than openly milking it; it may also be explained as having sucked meanness from one's mother's breast.
- Lane · entry 23517
- Lane · entry 23524
- Lane · entry 23531
رَضَعَتْ أَلْبَانُهَا
In a disputed reading, for milk to become scant, or to cause the milk of milch animals to diminish.
The supplied passage itself reports that the wording may be corrupt and proposes an alternative reading; the meaning is therefore lexical but textually uncertain.
- Lane · entry 23517
رَاضَعَ
To suckle with another, or to have another suckle with one; to share nursing and thereby become foster-siblings.
A reciprocal Form III construction.
- Lane · entry 23518
رِضَاعُ الكَأْسِ
Mutual sipping or drinking from a cup, especially a wine-cup.
Figurative use of the mutual-suckling construction.
- Lane · entry 23518
مُرَاضَعَةٌ
An infant's nursing from its mother while she is pregnant with another child.
A specialized Form III nursing construction.
- Lane · entry 23518
رَاضَعَ
To give or deliver a son to a woman to nurse.
A Form III construction in which the child is entrusted to the woman who will suckle him.
- Lane · entry 23518
ذَاتُ إِرْضَاعٍ / مُرْضِعٌ
A female having milk although she has no child currently being suckled.
A possessive or descriptive use distinct from the active act of nursing.
- Lane · entry 23519
- Lane · entry 23535
أَرْضَعَ
In a reported usage, to cause a child to be suckled, possibly through a wife or female slave.
The supplied source marks this interpretation as app., so the mediating nursing woman and the precise causative construction remain uncertain.
- Lane · entry 23519
تَرَاضَعَا
For two persons to suck the breast of one woman together.
Reciprocal Form VI construction.
- Lane · entry 23520
اِرْتَضَعَتِ العَنْزُ
For a she-goat to drink or suck its own milk from its udder.
A specialized intransitive Form VIII use applied to an animal.
- Lane · entry 23521
اِرْتِضَاعُ الكَأْسِ
Drinking from a cup, especially drinking wine.
Figurative Form VIII use.
- Lane · entry 23521
رِضْعٌ
A kind of tree on which camels feed.
A distinct nominal use unrelated to the nursing action.
- Lane · entry 23523
رَضَعٌ
The young shoots or suckers of palm trees.
A botanical noun; the same entry also records a separate figurative sense of meanness.
- Lane · entry 23524
رَضِيعٌ
A foster-brother or foster-sibling by nursing.
A nominal relationship term derived from shared suckling.
- Lane · entry 23517
- Lane · entry 23526
رَضِيعٌ / رَاضِعٌ
A suckling child, especially one not yet weaned.
The term may also be applied to a young animal described as still nursing.
- Lane · entry 23526
- Lane · entry 23531
الرَّضَاعَةُ
The west wind, or a wind between the west and south winds.
A figurative or specialized wind name, explained in relation to its effect on the milk of milch animals.
- Lane · entry 23527
رَضُوعَةٌ
A female animal that suckles its young, especially a ewe or she-goat with a nursing young one.
A feminine noun for the nursing animal.
- Lane · entry 23529
رَاضِعٌ
A stingy person who secretly sucks milk directly from an animal's teat instead of openly milking it.
The expression may describe a miserly owner or a herdsman who avoids carrying a milking vessel.
- Lane · entry 23531
رَاضِعٌ
A beggar, one who begs gifts from people.
Figurative use of the teat-sucking image.
- Lane · entry 23531
رَاضِعٌ
One who eats food particles remaining between his teeth so that nothing is lost.
A rare figurative characterization of extreme parsimony.
- Lane · entry 23531
رَاضِعٌ
A possessor of milk.
A possessive epithet formed in the manner of other nouns denoting possession.
- Lane · entry 23531
رَاضِعَةٌ / رَوَاضِعُ
A milk tooth, especially a central incisor, or collectively the deciduous teeth of a child or young animal.
The plural may include the teeth that grow and later fall out during the nursing period.
- Lane · entry 23532
مَرْضَعٌ
The breast as the place from which milk is suckled.
Its plural مَرَاضِعُ is formally identical with the Quranic plural presented under the wet-nurse entry.
- Lane · entry 23533
مَرْضَعٌ
The act of sucking the breast.
An infinitival use of the same nominal form, with plural مَرَاضِعُ reported in the supplied evidence.
- Lane · entry 23533
مُرْضَعٌ
Suckled or nursed; a child still receiving nursing.
Opposed to a weaned child.
- Lane · entry 23534
مُرْضِعٌ
A woman who has a suckling child with her.
This possessive epithet describes the state of having a nursing child and need not assert that the woman is nursing at the precise moment of reference.
- Lane · entry 23535
المُرْضِعَةُ
A position of command or governance together with the benefit or profit it brings.
A figurative expression contrasting the profitable office with death, the 'weaning' that ends its benefits.
- Lane · entry 23535
مَرَاضِيعُ
A metaphorical epithet for bees.
A plural metaphor based on the image of suckling or drinking.
- Lane · entry 23535
مُرَاضَعٌ
An unborn child whose mother is nursing another child; such a fetus was described as meagre or poorly nourished.
A specialized nominal use concerning simultaneous pregnancy and nursing.
- Lane · entry 23536
مُسْتَرْضَعٌ
A child or person for whom a wet nurse has been sought.
The form may be understood with an elided phrase meaning 'one for whom a wet nurse has been sought.'
- Lane · entry 23537
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Form I citation is normalized as رَضِعَ, while the supplied classical evidence also records رَضَعَ and differing vowel patterns as dialectal variants.
مَرَاضِعُ is formally ambiguous: it is also reported as the plural of مَرْضَعٌ, 'breast' or 'place of sucking.' The Quranic form is presented here under مُرْضِعٌ, 'wet nurse,' based on the supported participial reading and the supplied Quran context.
The milk-diminution branch is retained as a qualified classical meaning because the supplied Lane text itself questions the transmitted wording and proposes a correction.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
The Lane citation associated with مَرْضَعٌ is printed as 'xxviii. 11' in the supplied text and does not securely identify the QAC occurrence at 28:12:3; it was therefore not converted into a modern Quran location or used to force the breast/place meaning into the Quranic wet-nurse sense.