Quranic root
روض
r · w · ḍ
The root develops along two closely related semantic orientations: expansion and water-rich verdure, and the softening or training that makes something tractable.
One branch describes places becoming spacious, watered, and luxuriantly vegetated, yielding the meadow or garden sense and related ideas of pooled water and refreshment. The other describes breaking, training, and making manageable, which extends figuratively to disciplining the self, easing affairs, and coaxing others.
- Maqāyīs · row 2183
- Mufradāt · row 597
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- 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.
رَوْضَة
rawḍah
- Part of speech
- 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.
A verdant, water-bearing meadow or garden.
In the Quran, the singular and plural forms occur in expressions for the gardens or meadows of Paradise, evoking their beauty, abundance, and delights. The core image is a place where water and luxuriant greenery gather; rivers are not required by the lexical meaning.
- Lane · entry 24923
- Mufradāt · row 597
Selected Quran examples
Quran 30:15word 8
“a Garden”
Quran 42:22word 14
“flowering meadows”
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 30 Classical meanings
رَاضَ
To break and train a colt or beast, teach it to go, and make it tractable for riding; figuratively, to make a companion tractable.
The basic use concerns training an animal; the companion construction is figurative.
- Lane · entry 24915
رَاضَ
To train, discipline, or subdue oneself; to become clement or forbearing.
Used with the self and, in the cited expression, with piety as the means of discipline.
- Lane · entry 24915
رَاضَ
To make verses, an affair, or an undertaking easy and manageable through practice or skill.
A figurative extension from training something until it becomes tractable.
- Lane · entry 24915
رَاضَ
To bore or perforate pearls.
A specialized technical use.
- Lane · entry 24915
رَوَّضَ
To keep to or frequent meadows.
A Form II use with the meadows as the object of continued attachment.
- Lane · entry 24916
رَوَّضَ
To make bare or clear land into a meadow, or cause land to become a meadow.
Used of a person, torrent, rain, or God in relation to land.
- Lane · entry 24916
رَاوَضَ
To coax, wheedle, beguile, or attempt to deceive someone in order to induce him to enter into an affair.
Typically constructed with عَلَى for the matter at issue; the image is of training an initially refractory beast.
- Lane · entry 24917
بَيْعُ الْمُرَاوَضَةِ
A sale by describing merchandise that is not present to the prospective buyer.
A conventional commercial expression, also called a sale by description; its legal acceptability was disputed.
- Lane · entry 24917
أَرَاضَ
To become abundant in meadows or vegetation; of land, to become clothed with plants or herbage.
The subject may be a place or the land itself; variant forms are also reported.
- Lane · entry 24918
أَرَاضَ
To have water stagnate, remain, or collect in a valley or watering-trough, or to fill a trough until water covers its bottom.
The construction may describe the receptacle's becoming water-filled or the act of filling it; the water may spread over or conceal the bottom.
- Lane · entry 24918
أَرَاضَ
To satisfy thirst, fully or to some degree; in an idiom, to drink until satisfied or to take a second draught.
Also used of a vessel that satisfies the thirst of a group.
- Lane · entry 24918
أَرَاضَ
To pour milk upon milk.
A reported specialized use attributed to one authority and regarded by another as unusual.
- Lane · entry 24918
التَّرَاوُضُ
To bargain through mutual concessions, increasing the amount offered and reducing the amount demanded.
A commercial reciprocal construction involving both parties.
- Lane · entry 24919
التَّرَاوُضُ
To practice mutual dissimulation or feigned affection in an affair.
Used with فِي in the affair under discussion.
- Lane · entry 24919
اِرْتَاضَ
Of an animal, to become broken, trained, and tractable.
Used of a colt, she-camel, or other beast.
- Lane · entry 24920
اِرْتَاضَ
Of rhymes or verses, to become easy through practice.
A figurative use applied to poetic composition.
- Lane · entry 24920
اِسْتَرَاضَ
Of water, to stagnate, remain, or collect in a place.
A water-related development of the meadow and pooling branch.
- Lane · entry 24921
اِسْتَرَاضَ
Of a place, to become wide, ample, or spacious.
Applied to a place or area rather than to water itself.
- Lane · entry 24921
اِسْتَرَاضَتِ النَّفْسُ
For the mind to become expansive, free from constraint, cheerful, or happy.
A figurative application of spatial expansion to the mind or disposition.
- Lane · entry 24921
رَوْضَة
A pool or quantity of rainwater retained in a depression or in ground receiving runoff.
This broader Classical use can denote retained water even apart from the verdant meadow sense.
- Lane · entry 24923
رَوْضَة
A quantity of water, including roughly half a waterskin or enough to cover the bottom of a watering-trough.
A specialized measure or quantity sense.
- Lane · entry 24923
رَائِض
A breaker or trainer of colts or other beasts.
The noun denotes the person who performs the training.
- Lane · entry 24925
رَيِّض
Clement or forbearing.
A figurative adjectival use.
- Lane · entry 24926
رَيِّض
Refractory or not yet trained, especially of an animal or a boy.
Applied to male or female animals and, by extension, to a boy; it contrasts with being fully tractable.
- Lane · entry 24926
رَيِّض
Difficult or not skilfully composed, managed, or regulated.
Applied to difficult poetic rhymes, an imperfectly composed ode, or a poorly managed affair.
- Lane · entry 24926
مَرَاض
Hard ground in the lower part of a plain that retains water.
A landscape term for water-retaining ground.
- Lane · entry 24928
مَرُوض
A colt, she-camel, or other beast that has been broken or trained.
A passive-result noun or adjective describing an animal made tractable.
- Lane · entry 24929
مُسْتَرْوِضَة
Of land, having produced good herbage or plants whose growth has become strong and erect; of plants, having reached their full size and height.
Applied to productive land and mature vegetation.
- Lane · entry 24930
مُسْتَرِيضَة
Of the mind, free from constraint, cheerful, or happy.
A figurative state of mental expansiveness.
- Lane · entry 24930
مُسْتَرِيض
Of poetry or the rajaz metre, easy or practicable.
A figurative use describing composition or metre that is easy to handle.
- Lane · entry 24930
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quran-focused discussion also records an interpretive reading of 42:22 in which the gardens signify knowledge and moral qualities prepared for the righteous; this is retained as an exegetical possibility, not promoted to a separate lexical sense.