Quranic root
ركب
r · k · b
The root centers on one thing being above or upon another.
From this orientation develop mounting and riding, embarking, placing parts together, layered arrangements, and terms for mounts and mounted groups.
- Maqāyīs · row 2121
- 7
- Quran-attested forms
- 7
- Quran senses
- 15
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
رَكِبَ
rakiba
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 9 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 mount or ride; to embark in or on a vessel.
Used for being upon an animal and, by extension, for going aboard a ship or traveling upon the sea.
- Lane · entry 24275
- Mufradāt · row 576
Selected Quran examples
رَكَّبَ
rakkaba
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form II
- Form
- II
- 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 assemble, compose, or constitute by putting parts or elements together.
In the Quranic construction, it describes the forming or constituting of a person; the lexical construction also includes fixing one component into another.
- Lane · entry 24276
Selected Quran examples
Quran 82:8word 6
“He assembled you”
مُتَرَاكِب
mutarākib
- 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.
Layered, overlapping, or clustered with parts one upon another.
An active-participial adjective describing an arrangement in which parts or growths are superposed or densely stacked.
- Lane · entry 24275
- Mufradāt · row 576
Selected Quran examples
Quran 6:99word 18
“thick clustered”
رَكُوب
rakūb
- 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 riding animal or other thing used as a mount.
A noun for something ridden, especially an animal designated or fit for riding.
- Lane · entry 24292
Selected Quran examples
Quran 36:72word 4
“they ride them”
رِكَاب
rikāb
- 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.
Traveling or transport camels used as riding mounts.
A collective noun for camels on which people journey or which carry goods; it has no ordinary singular in this usage.
- Lane · entry 24291
- Mufradāt · row 576
Selected Quran examples
Quran 59:6word 13
“camels”
رُكْبَان
rukbān
- 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.
Riders or people traveling mounted.
A plural or collective designation for people who are riding rather than traveling on foot.
- Lane · entry 24300
- Mufradāt · row 576
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:239word 5
“riding”
رَكْب
rakb
- 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 company of mounted travelers; a caravan.
A collective noun for a group of riders or travelers, commonly camels or a mixed mounted company.
- Lane · entry 24300
- Mufradāt · row 576
Selected Quran examples
Quran 8:42word 8
“and the caravan”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:239رُكْبَانًۭا ۖriding
- 6:99مُّتَرَاكِبًۭاthick clustered
- 8:42وَٱلرَّكْبُand the caravan
- 11:41ٱرْكَبُوا۟Embark
- 11:42ٱرْكَبEmbark
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 57 Classical meanings
رَكِبَ
To be upon, overlie, overlay, or become superincumbent upon something.
A transitive or passive construction describing one thing coming upon or remaining over another.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To lie in layers, one part upon or over another.
Used especially of fat disposed in successive layers; the broader layering construction is also expressed by related derived forms.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَهُ
To come upon, overtake, or follow closely after someone or something.
Also used with a person's track or road for following immediately behind.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To travel along or upon a road, sand, desert, or sea.
A construction for taking a route or voyaging upon the sea; it may also describe venturing into a difficult circumstance.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To venture upon, undertake, encounter, or master an affair or difficulty.
Used with an affair, the night, fear, or another demanding matter.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To commit a sin, crime, or comparable wrongful act.
A conventional figurative transitive use with an offense or wrongdoing.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To do an evil, harmful, or abominable act to someone.
Used in the construction رَكِبَهُ بِمَكْرُوهٍ and related expressions.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To become heavily indebted; for debt to burden someone.
Used both of incurring much debt and of debt coming upon or weighing upon a person.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ رَأْسَهُ
To go at random, heedlessly, or headlong, without a settled direction or guide.
Also used of following one's own opinion or desire without deliberation.
- Lane · entry 24275
- Lane · entry 24284
رَكِبْتُ دُبَّتَهُ
To adhere to another's state, way, or manner of acting and do as that person does.
An idiomatic construction describing conformity to another's conduct or way.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَتْهُ الحُمَّى
For fever or a similar affliction to continue upon or beset someone.
An idiomatic use for an illness remaining upon a person.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكَبَهُ
To strike someone with the knee or strike the person's knee.
The construction can describe taking someone by the hair and striking the forehead with the knee.
- Lane · entry 24275
رُكِبَ
To suffer a complaint or ailment of the knee.
A passive-form expression with neuter significance.
- Lane · entry 24275
رَكِبَ
To be large in the knee.
Describes a person or animal with an unusually large knee.
- Lane · entry 24275
- Lane · entry 24303
رَكَّبَهُ الفَرَسَ
To lend or mount a person on a horse for an expedition in return for an agreed share of the spoil.
A specialized expeditionary arrangement in which the rider receives part of the spoil.
- Lane · entry 24276
رَكَّبَ
To remove a shoot from one place and plant it in another.
Used especially of a palm-tree shoot being transplanted.
- Lane · entry 24276
أَرْكَبَ
For a colt or young animal to become fit for riding.
Describes reaching the suitable age or condition for being ridden.
- Lane · entry 24277
أَرْكَبَ
To give, appoint, or assign someone an animal to ride; to mount someone on an animal.
The causative construction may specify the rider's position or the quality of the mount.
- Lane · entry 24277
أَرْكَبَ
To make someone venture upon, undertake, or commit an affair or offense.
A figurative causative construction parallel to making someone embark upon an affair or wrongdoing.
- Lane · entry 24277
تَرَكَّبَ
To become composed or constituted, with one part set upon or fixed into another.
Used of an object whose components are put together, such as a stone set in a ring or an arrowhead fixed in a shaft.
- Lane · entry 24278
تَرَاكَبَ
To heap or pile up one above another.
Used especially of clouds becoming layered or superposed.
- Lane · entry 24279
اِسْتَرْكَبَ
To ask someone to provide or assign an animal for riding.
The expression may be followed by the provider's actually assigning the mount.
- Lane · entry 24281
رَكَب
The pubic region or pudendum; in some descriptions, the pubic hair or adjacent lower abdominal region.
A bodily term with recorded differences over whether it applies to men, women, or both.
- Lane · entry 24283
رَكَب
Whiteness on the knee.
A distinct nominal anatomical or descriptive use.
- Lane · entry 24283
رَكْبَة
A single ride or act of riding.
A countable noun whose plural denotes separate rides.
- Lane · entry 24284
رُكْبَة
The knee or corresponding joint of a human or quadruped.
In animal anatomy the term is applied to the relevant forelimb joint, with detailed terminology varying by species.
- Lane · entry 24285
رُكَب
In an idiom, an agitating or alarming affair in which people's knees metaphorically knock together.
A figurative expression for severe disturbance or apprehension.
- Lane · entry 24285
رُكْبَة
A knee-based comparison for things that are alike or correspondent.
The expression likens two corresponding things to the two knees of a she-goat; related usage describes a mark resembling a knee.
- Lane · entry 24285
رُكْبَة
In a proverb, the condition of having one's fat upon the knee, signifying quick anger or perfidy.
A fixed proverbial expression whose interpretation includes being easily angered.
- Lane · entry 24285
رُكْبَة
The lower part or base of the plant called صِلِّيَانَة after it has been cut.
A specialized botanical noun.
- Lane · entry 24285
رِكْبَة
A mode, manner, or act of riding.
Used of the quality or style with which someone rides.
- Lane · entry 24286
رَكَبَة
A relatively small company of camel riders or camel travelers.
A group designation smaller than رَكْب and conventionally associated with camels.
- Lane · entry 24287
رِكَابُ السَّحَابِ
The winds that bear or carry clouds.
A figurative genitive expression.
- Lane · entry 24291
رِكَاب
The stirrup of a horse's saddle.
A saddle accessory, distinct from the collective noun for riding camels.
- Lane · entry 24291
رَكُوب
A camel bearing gall-marks or saddle sores on its back.
A specialized descriptive use of the noun as an epithet.
- Lane · entry 24292
رَكُوب
A road or route ridden upon and made even or easier by travel.
An adjectival use describing a road suitable for riding or trodden smooth.
- Lane · entry 24292
رَكِيب
A fellow rider or one who rides with another.
Also used in specialized expressions for an associate accompanying officials or collectors.
- Lane · entry 24293
رَكِيب
A row of palm trees planted along a watercourse or in a line.
A specialized agricultural term.
- Lane · entry 24293
رَكِيب
A water channel, strip, or cultivated area between fields, gardens, or rivulets.
Regional descriptions include a channel, the land between two plots, or a place of seed-produce.
- Lane · entry 24293
أَهْلُ الرَّكِيبِ
People who dwell beside a watercourse.
A fixed expression equivalent to residents settled by water.
- Lane · entry 24293
رِكَابِيّ
A term for olive oil brought from Syria by camel transport.
A nisbah adjective naming the oil by its mode of transport or provenance.
- Lane · entry 24296
رَكَّاب
A person who rides much or is an accomplished rider.
The feminine counterpart is used for a woman who rides much.
- Lane · entry 24297
رَكَّابٌ لِلْأُمُورِ
A person who repeatedly undertakes and masters affairs through knowledge, experience, and judgment.
A figurative intensive expression.
- Lane · entry 24297
الرُّكَّاب
A nightmare or incubus that comes upon a person.
Used in the expression عَلاهُ الرُّكَّابُ.
- Lane · entry 24298
رَاكِب
A palm shoot growing from the trunk or upper part of a palm tree without an independent root in the ground.
A botanical term for a shoot that may remain attached to and sometimes bear with its parent tree.
- Lane · entry 24300
رُكْبَانُ السُّنْبُلِ
The first growths emerging from the envelope of a wheat ear.
A specialized botanical expression.
- Lane · entry 24300
رَاكِب
The head or summit of a mountain.
A figurative topographical use.
- Lane · entry 24300
رَاكِب
A rider, traditionally especially a rider on a camel.
The unprefixed noun can have the narrower camel-rider sense, while a prefixed construction may specify a rider on another animal; its plural usages include mounted companies.
- Lane · entry 24300
رُكَّابُ السَّفِينَةِ
A person on board a ship or boat; a voyager upon the water.
A plural expression for ship passengers or water travelers.
- Lane · entry 24300
رَاكِبَة
A streak or layer of fat overlying another in the front part of a camel's hump.
The plural رَوَاكِبُ denotes successive fat layers; layers in the rear are distinguished by another term.
- Lane · entry 24301
أُرْكُوب
A large company of camel riders or camel travelers.
A group designation larger than رَكْب and associated specifically with camel travel in the cited usage.
- Lane · entry 24304
مَرْكَب
A place or means of riding: a mount, vessel, saddle, or other vehicle.
The noun applies to things on, in, or upon which one is carried, including ships and boats.
- Lane · entry 24305
مَرْكَب
The principal star of Pegasus, named by reference to the place of a saddle.
A specialized astronomical name.
- Lane · entry 24305
مُرْكِب
A colt or beast that has reached the age or condition at which it may be ridden.
A descriptive participial noun for an animal fit for riding.
- Lane · entry 24306
مُرَكَّب
A man lent or given a horse for an expedition, typically in return for a share of the spoil.
The term may also describe one who has mounted the assigned horse; a separate attested use describes weakness in horsemanship.
- Lane · entry 24307
مُرَكَّب
A thing set or fixed in another thing; something composed or put together.
Examples include a stone set in a signet ring and an arrowhead fixed in its shaft.
- Lane · entry 24307
مُرَكَّب
Origin, stock, or place of growth and germination.
In expressions concerning a person's rank, it can refer figuratively to the origin of that standing among the people.
- Lane · entry 24307
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Several Classical entries record competing analyses of the scope or gender of specialized anatomical and rider-group terms; the definitions retain the attested alternatives without imposing a single disputed restriction.