Quranic root
روح
r · w · ḥ
A root centered on moving air and the spacious relief it brings, extending to breath, vitality, rest, movement, and spiritual life.
The semantic development runs from wind and moving air to breath and the vital spirit, then to relief, ease, afternoon movement, alternating action, and spiritual or revelatory life.
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- 6
- Quran-attested forms
- 13
- Quran senses
- 57
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
أَرَاحَ
ʾarāḥa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- 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 bring livestock back from pasture to their resting place, especially in the afternoon or evening.
The Quranic occurrence is the imperfect second-person plural form تُرِيحُونَ, referring to bringing livestock in.
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:6word 5
“you bring them in”
رَوَاح
rawāḥ
- 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.
Afternoon or evening departure, return, or course; the movement associated with the later part of the day.
The time commonly begins after the sun declines from the meridian and extends toward night; the noun may denote either that period or movement during it.
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- Lane · entry 24826
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 34:12word 5
“and its afternoon course”
رِيح
rīḥ
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 29 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.
Wind; moving air.
The singular and plural forms refer to moving air. In Quranic usage, the plural often occurs in contexts of beneficial or rain-bearing winds, while the singular often occurs in contexts of destructive wind; this is a tendency of usage, not an exceptionless rule.
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 15:22word 2
“the winds”
Power, predominance, or strength.
This is a figurative use, explicitly represented in the expression وَتَذْهَبَ رِيحُكُمْ, where the loss of wind signifies the loss of collective power or predominance.
- Lane · entry 24838
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 8:46word 8
“your strength”
رُوح
rūḥ
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 21 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.
Soul, spirit, or vital principle—the life-giving element associated with life, sensation, and movement.
The Quran uses the word for the human or creaturely spirit and vital principle, including in the question about the nature of the spirit and in possessive expressions such as “My spirit” and “His spirit.”
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 17:85word 3
“the soul”
Divine revelation or inspiration, including the Qur'an as spiritually life-giving guidance.
The term occurs for revelation conveyed by an angel and for the revealed Qur'an; the life-giving comparison is spiritual rather than bodily.
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:2word 3
“with the inspiration”
Gabriel, especially in the designations the Holy Spirit and the Trustworthy Spirit.
This is a referential use of الرُّوح in expressions such as رُوحُ القُدُس and الرُّوحُ الأَمِين, not a general synonym for every spirit.
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 26:193word 3
“the Spirit”
Jesus, described as a spirit from God.
The designation in وَرُوحٌ مِنْهُ identifies Jesus in a special honorific expression; it does not assert that he is identical with the divine essence.
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:171word 24
“and a spirit”
A distinguished heavenly spirit or angelic being.
In descriptions of the heavenly assembly, the Spirit is named alongside the angels or as a specially designated spiritual being; the precise identity is context-dependent.
- Lane · entry 24836
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 78:38word 3
“the Spirit”
رَوْح
rawḥ
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 3 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.
Relief, ease, refreshment, or mercy after distress.
In the Quranic expressions مِنْ رَوْحِ اللَّهِ and فَرَوْحٌ, the word denotes release from distress or a condition of rest and ease; the latter is paired with رَيْحَان.
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- Lane · entry 24835
- Lane · entry 24839
Selected Quran examples
Quran 12:87word 10
“(the) Mercy of Allah”
Quran 56:89word 1
“Then rest”
رَيْحَان
rayḥān
- 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 fragrant plant or sweet-smelling herb.
The noun may refer generally to fragrant vegetation, including the scented vegetation mentioned in the Quran.
- Lane · entry 24843
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 55:12word 4
“and scented plants”
Edible grain or produce.
This is an interpretation of رَيْحَان in وَالْحَبُّ ذُو الْعَصْفِ وَالرَّيْحَانُ, where it is understood as edible produce rather than fragrant vegetation.
- Lane · entry 24843
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 55:12word 4
“and scented plants”
Bounty or provision from God.
In فَرَوْحٌ وَرَيْحَانٌ, the word can denote divinely granted provision or bounty.
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Selected Quran examples
Quran 56:89word 2
“and bounty”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:87بِرُوحِ(with)
- 2:164ٱلرِّيَـٰحِ(of) the winds
- 2:253بِرُوحِwith Spirit
- 3:117رِيحٍۢ(of) a wind
- 4:171وَرُوحٌۭand a spirit
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 67 Classical meanings
رَاحٌ
Windy, especially violently windy; also pleasantly cooled or aired by wind.
Applied to days, nights, houses, tents, and places according to the kind or effect of the wind.
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رَاحَ
To become brisk, lively, active, or cheerful, often with alacrity to perform a kindness or task.
The same branch can describe prompt action, cheerful readiness, or a hand acting quickly.
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رَاحَ
Of trees or branches, to break forth with leaves.
The usage describes renewed foliage, including growth after seasonal cold or after earlier leaves have fallen.
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رَاحَ
Of a horse, to become a stallion or fit for covering.
- Lane · entry 24826
رَاحَتْهُ الرِّيحُ
To be struck, blown upon, shaken, or covered with dust by the wind.
Used of trees, branches, pools, and other things affected by wind; of people, entering wind may imply being struck and destroyed by it.
- Lane · entry 24826
- Lane · entry 24870
رَاحَ
To smell or perceive the odor of something.
The object may be a thing, a person, prey, a female animal, or an odor itself; the verb can also occur in the expression “perceive the scent of Paradise.”
- Lane · entry 24826
أَرَاحَ
Of meat, water, or another thing, to become altered or foul in odor; to stink.
The form may describe the thing emitting an unpleasant odor or becoming changed in smell.
- Lane · entry 24829
رَاحَ مِنْكَ مَعْرُوفًا
To obtain a favor or benefit from someone.
A figurative extension from receiving relief or benefit.
- Lane · entry 24826
رَوَّحَ
To fan someone or oneself, or to use a fan to produce moving air.
The Form II verb may take a person as object or occur with a fan as the instrument.
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رَوَّحَ
To perfume oil or another substance and make its odor sweet.
The passive participle مُرَوَّح describes something perfumed.
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رَوَّحَ
To perform the tarawih prayers with people; a تَرْوِيحَة is a rest interval in that prayer sequence.
The religious term is connected with the rests taken between units of prayer.
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- Lane · entry 24867
رَاوَحَ
To do two works, actions, or bodily movements alternately, each taking a turn.
The construction applies to alternating work, shifting weight between the feet or sides, mutual relief, and visiting one another's homes in turn.
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أَرَاحَ
To breathe or emit breath.
Said of a person or horse; the related noun may denote breath or the wind issuing from the body.
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أَرَاحَ
To revive, recover, or restore vitality after fatigue or depletion.
Used of people, animals, and, figuratively or causatively, vegetation revived by rain.
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أَرَاحَ
To die or perish, figuratively as finding rest; to cause others to be rid of someone.
The expression أَرَاحَ فَأَرَاحَ plays on dying and bringing rest to others.
- Lane · entry 24829
أَرَاحَ
To perform prayer as an act that brings rest to the soul.
The meaning is explained through the relief associated with completing or entering the prayer.
- Lane · entry 24829
أَرَاحَ
To give someone or something rest, ease, or relief; to cause it to enter a state of repose.
The object may be a person, hired worker, animal, or any being needing relief.
- Lane · entry 24829
أَرَاحَ
To alight from a camel in order to let it rest and relieve it.
The object is understood from the context as the ridden camel.
- Lane · entry 24829
أَرَاحَ عَلَيْهِ حَقَّهُ
To restore a person's right or due to him.
A figurative use connected with returning something to its proper recipient.
- Lane · entry 24829
تَرَوَّحَ
Of an odor, to exhale or diffuse itself.
- Lane · entry 24830
تَرَوَّحَ
Of water, to acquire the odor of another thing because of proximity.
- Lane · entry 24830
تَرَوَّحَ
Of herbage or trees, to become tall or grow.
- Lane · entry 24830
اِسْتَرْوَحَ
Of a branch, to be shaken by the wind or incline from side to side.
- Lane · entry 24833
اِسْتَرْوَحَ إِلَيْهِ
To trust or rely on someone or something and become inwardly calm.
The construction may also mean to find ease through the person or thing relied upon.
- Lane · entry 24833
رَاحَةٌ
Rest, repose, ease, or relief from trouble, toil, grief, or fatigue.
This includes a single rest, comparative conduciveness to ease, and ease of mind; it is also the basis of several derived expressions.
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رَوْحٌ
A gentle wind, breeze, or the coolness carried by a gentle wind.
The term can denote the beginning or breath of a wind before it becomes strong.
- Lane · entry 24835
رَوْحٌ
Breath or spirit, understood as the breath or vital principle of a living being.
This is a Classical lexical explanation distinct from the Quranic referential uses of رُوح.
- Lane · entry 24835
رَوْحٌ
Joy, happiness, or gladness; relief of the heart from grief.
The expression روح اليقين denotes the joy arising from certainty.
- Lane · entry 24835
رُوحٌ
What God ordains or commands through His assistants and angels.
A figurative Classical use of the term for divine direction or command.
- Lane · entry 24836
رَوَحٌ
Width, wideness, or spaciousness; especially breadth between the legs or spreading at the front of the feet.
The physical usage may describe a person's gait, feet, or legs and is distinguished from more extreme forms of crookedness.
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رِيحٌ
Aid against an enemy, victory, conquest, or a turn of good fortune.
A figurative extension from wind as force or predominance.
- Lane · entry 24838
رَيِّحٌ
Good, pleasant, or agreeable in wind, air, day, night, or place.
Some authorities also use the adjective for a violently windy day; the object and context determine the nuance.
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- Lane · entry 24855
أَرْوَاحٌ
Jinn or genies, in a figurative plural usage.
The designation is explained by their being unseen like wind.
- Lane · entry 24838
رَاحَةٌ
A wife.
A figurative explanation connects the term with the quiet and reliance a wife provides.
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رَاحَةٌ
The palm of the hand, or the hand including the palm.
The palm is distinguished from the fingers in the more precise anatomical usage.
- Lane · entry 24839
رَاحَةٌ
A certain plant, and in one expression the plant called رَاحَةُ الكَلْبِ.
- Lane · entry 24839
ذُو الرَّاحَةِ
A named sword associated with al-Mukhtar ibn Abi ʿUbayd.
This is a proper descriptive designation rather than a general sense of the noun.
- Lane · entry 24839
رَاحَةٌ
A court, open area, or yard of a house.
The same noun may be used in the idiom for something left completely clear or empty.
- Lane · entry 24839
رَاحَةٌ
An open tract of land, often hard ground with soft places and abundant herbage.
The term applies to land that is neither the bed of a torrent nor a valley.
- Lane · entry 24839
رَاحَةٌ
The original fold or plicature of a garment or piece of cloth.
Used in instructions to fold a new garment along its original crease.
- Lane · entry 24839
رِيحِيٌّ
Of or relating to wind; flatulent.
The adjective is also used in medical terminology for wind or flatus in the body.
- Lane · entry 24842
رَيْحَان
Offspring or descendants.
A figurative use extended from the pleasantness or bounty associated with fragrant plants.
- Lane · entry 24843
رَيْحَان
A request for or seeking of provision and sustenance.
In the accusative, the noun can function as an absolute complement with the meaning of seeking provision.
- Lane · entry 24843
رُوحَانِيٌّ
Spiritual; relating to angels, jinn, or other beings possessing spirit rather than ordinary bodily form.
The adjective can also be applied broadly to a human or animal insofar as it has a soul, though the narrower spiritual-being usage is primary in the lexical discussion.
- Lane · entry 24845
رَائِحٌ
A wild bull.
The epithet is associated with the animal's vehement running after rain.
- Lane · entry 24859
رَائِحَةٌ
In an idiom, anything at all; with a negative, the absence of anything or of any people.
The idiom مَا لَهُ سَارِحَةٌ وَلَا رَائِحَةٌ means that someone has nothing, literally no livestock going out or returning.
- Lane · entry 24859
رَائِحَةٌ
An odor, scent, or smell perceived by the sense of smelling, whether pleasant or foul.
The word may refer to a sweet odor in the breath of the wind or to an odor generally.
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رَائِحَةٌ
In an idiom, a visible trace or tinge of blood in the face; in the negative, pallor from fear.
The expression describes a person arriving frightened or lacking any color in the face.
- Lane · entry 24860
رَائِحَةٌ
Rain that comes in the evening or afternoon.
- Lane · entry 24860
رَائِحَةٌ
A cloud arriving in the evening or afternoon.
- Lane · entry 24860
أَرْيَحُ
Wide, spacious, or shallow, especially when applied to a carrying litter, bowl, or dish.
The adjective may describe the breadth or shallowness of a vessel or other object.
- Lane · entry 24861
أَرْيَحِيٌّ
Large or liberal in disposition; characterized by cheerful alacrity toward generosity and beneficence.
The related abstract noun denotes generosity and ready liberality of disposition.
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- Lane · entry 24864
أَرْيَحِيٌّ
Of a sword, shaking or ready to strike.
The same form may alternatively be a nisba to a place or tribe; that alternative is not a semantic extension.
- Lane · entry 24863
رَوَّاحَةٌ
A flock of sheep or goats.
- Lane · entry 24858
مَرَاحٌ
A place from which people depart or to which they return in the afternoon or evening.
The related مُرَاح is specifically the nightly resting place to which livestock are brought back.
- Lane · entry 24868
مَرَاحٌ
In an idiom, all states, conditions, or circumstances without exception.
The expression contrasts a morning departure-place and an evening return-place to mean every condition.
- Lane · entry 24868
مُرَاحٌ
The nightly resting place or resort to which camels, sheep, goats, or cattle are brought from pasture.
The form is a place noun from the causative verb and is distinct from the more general place of departure or return.
- Lane · entry 24869
مَرُوحٌ
Blown upon, shaken, or dusted by the wind.
Applied to pools, branches, trees, and places affected by wind.
- Lane · entry 24870
مَرْوَحَةٌ
A place through which winds blow; by extension, a desert or waterless tract.
The term can refer to a wind passage that effaces traces of habitation.
- Lane · entry 24874
مُرَاوِحٌ
Of a she-camel, lying down behind the other camels.
- Lane · entry 24877
المُرْتَاحُ
The fifth horse in a race of ten horses.
A specialized term of horse racing.
- Lane · entry 24878
مِرْيَاحٌ
Of food, causing much flatulence in the belly.
- Lane · entry 24879
مُسْتَرَاحٌ
A grave, regarded as a place of rest.
This is a figurative place-noun use.
- Lane · entry 24880
مُسْتَرَاحٌ
A privy or latrine.
A place-noun use meaning a place of bodily relief.
- Lane · entry 24880
مُسْتَرَاحٌ
A time of rest or ease.
This is the noun-of-time use of the same form.
- Lane · entry 24880
مُسْتَرَاحٌ
Dead, literally at rest or relieved of activity.
A passive-participial or figurative use, especially in the expression مُسْتَرَاحٌ مِنْهُ.
- Lane · entry 24880
رَاحٌ
Wine.
The term is explained as referring to the drink whose effect makes the drinker brisk, lively, or sprightly, or disposed to generous action.
- Lane · entry 24834
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The singular/plural tendency for رِيح and رِيَاح in Quranic contexts is a usage pattern, not an exceptionless semantic rule.
رُوح is context-sensitive in the Quran and may denote the vital spirit, revelation, Gabriel, Jesus in an honorific expression, or a distinguished heavenly being.
The contextual rendering “the smell” at 12:94 is not independently sufficient to establish a Quranic smell sense for رِيح; the lexical artifact therefore does not promote that contextual gloss to a numbered Quranic sense.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
The Quran Foundation contextual gloss for رِيح at 12:94 is “the smell,” but the supplied Quran-focused lexical discussion does not explicitly identify that Quran occurrence as a distinct smell sense; it remains contextual evidence only.