Quranic root
سبل
s · b · l
The root centers on sending or extending something downward or outward, and on an extended route or course.
The downward-extension idea appears in hanging garments, falling rain, flowing hair, and vessel edges; extension in length develops into سَبِيلٌ, a way or path, and related travel and grain-ear usages.
- Maqāyīs · row 2352
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 6
- Quran senses
- 176
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
سَبِيلٌ
sabīlun
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 176 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 way, road, path, or route; a traversable course.
Used literally for a road or route and, in the plural سُبُلٌ, for ways or paths. The term can also denote a clear, open, or easy route.
- Lane · entry 40139
- Mufradāt · row 658
Selected Quran examples
Quran 15:76word 2
“(is) on a road”
A course, way, or cause of action, whether good or evil; especially the way of God, religion, truth, guidance, or righteous action.
Common in expressions such as سَبِيلُ اللَّهِ, سَبِيلُ رَبِّكَ, سُبُلُ السَّلَامِ, and related constructions. In religious usage it may refer to the cause or way by which one seeks divine favor, and it is often associated with striving or good works.
- Lane · entry 40139
- Mufradāt · row 658
Selected Quran examples
Quran 16:125word 19
“His way”
A means of access, connection, or approach to an end; an avenue to safety or salvation.
A figurative use for a means by which one reaches something, including a way to safety or Paradise. It is attested in the construction of taking or finding a سَبِيلٌ with or toward someone or something.
- Lane · entry 40139
- Mufradāt · row 658
Selected Quran examples
Quran 3:97word 18
“(find) a way”
A wayfarer or traveler, especially one stranded away from home, in the expression ابنُ السَّبِيلِ.
The phrase literally presents the traveler as the “son of the road.” Quranic usage includes a traveler whose journey or access to resources has been cut off, and who therefore requires assistance.
- Lane · entry 40139
- Mufradāt · row 658
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:177word 28
“the wayfarer”
A ground for blame, reproach, or liability.
In constructions such as ما عَلَى ... مِنْ سَبِيلٍ, it denotes no basis for blame or liability; in إِنَّمَا السَّبِيلُ عَلَى ..., it denotes the liability or blame that does apply.
- Mufradāt · row 658
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:91word 23
“way (for blame)”
In the Quranic construction تَقْطَعُونَ السَّبِيلَ, to cut off or obstruct the way.
The passage is interpreted either as preventing offspring through unnatural sexual conduct or as confronting travelers on the roads for an obscene purpose. These are interpretations of the cited construction, not general restrictions on the noun سَبِيلٌ.
- Lane · entry 40139
Selected Quran examples
Quran 29:29word 5
“the road”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:108ٱلسَّبِيلِ(of) the way
- 2:154سَبِيلِ(the) way
- 2:177ٱلسَّبِيلِthe wayfarer
- 2:190سَبِيلِ(the) way
- 2:195سَبِيلِ(the) way
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 35 Classical meanings
سَبَّلَ
To dedicate property, its revenue, or its usufruct to charitable, religious, or other pious uses.
Often used of assigning an estate or its profits to the way of God, wayfarers, the poor, or fighters; also of making benefits freely available to designated beneficiaries.
- Lane · entry 40130
سَبَّلَ
To have or become long in the سَبَلَة, especially the beard or hanging facial hair.
A derived use connected with the length or hanging of the beard or moustache.
- Lane · entry 40130
أَسْبَلَ
Of a road, to have travelers following or passing along it repeatedly.
Describes a road with successive or recurring movement of people upon it.
- Lane · entry 40131
أَسْبَلَ
To let down, lower, or make something hang down or trail.
Used of a waist-wrapper, garment, veil, curtain, skirt, tail, or a part of the beard; the intransitive use describes something falling or hanging upon the breast.
- Lane · entry 40131
أَسْبَلَ
To pour, shed, or fall abundantly or continuously.
Used of water, rain, tears, and flowing blood; it can also describe speech poured forth profusely.
- Lane · entry 40131
أَسْبَلَ
Of a crop, to put forth ears or grain-heads.
The verb is also related by cross-reference to سَنْبَلَ and تَسَنْبَلَ in this agricultural sense.
- Lane · entry 40131
سَبَلٌ
Something let loose, let down, made to hang, or made to trail; especially hanging or trailing garments.
The noun may denote what has been allowed to hang down or garments made to drag on the ground.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
Rain, including rain issuing from clouds, flowing rain, or flowing blood by extension.
A figurative extension from something descending or flowing from above.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
The name of a particular excellent mare.
A proper-name use reported as belonging to a specific mare.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
A name used for a ewe or she-goat.
A naming or calling use, including the call used when asking the animal to be milked.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
An ear or head of grain, or the spreading awns or extremities of a grain ear.
The term may refer especially to a bending or inclining ear and is used alongside سُنْبُلٌ and سَبُولَةٌ.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
Virgo, or the star Spica in Virgo.
An astronomical and astrological proper-name use.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
A plant associated with Indian spikenard.
The plant-name wording is transmitted in the discussion of the grain-ear terminology and is retained as a cautious lexical identification.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
The upper edges, lips, or head of a vessel, especially a bucket or drinking vessel.
Used of filling a vessel up to its edges or lips.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
A number of spears, few or many.
An extended use associated with the heads of spears and grain ears.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
The nose.
Occurs in an imprecation concerning making the nose cleave to the ground, figuratively abasing or humbling someone.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
A coarse garment made from the hard or hurds of flax.
A specialized textile use.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
A disease or film of the eye resembling a web, with visible red veins.
A technical ophthalmic term for a film or covering over the eye, associated by analogy with a lowered veil.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبَلٌ
Reviling or vilification between people.
Used in the expression that there is سَبَلٌ between two persons.
- Lane · entry 40134
سَبِلٌ
Long and flaccid, specifically of the scrotum.
An adjectival use describing length and laxity.
- Lane · entry 40135
سُبْلَةٌ
Rain covering a wide extent.
A specialized rain term.
- Lane · entry 40136
سَبَلَةٌ
The moustache or beard, especially the hair hanging from the front of the face.
The term is variously applied to the moustache, its extremity, the forepart of the beard, or the hair hanging toward the breast.
- Lane · entry 40137
سَبَلَةٌ
The upper breast region of a camel, or the hair or skin on that region.
Used of the place where a camel is stabbed or struck above the breast, and of its associated hair or skin.
- Lane · entry 40137
سَبِيلٌ
A public drinking fountain.
A later usage of the noun, distinct from its Quranic senses of way or course.
- Lane · entry 40139
سَابِلٌ
A traveler, or a company of travelers, moving along a road.
The collective use can denote people following or succeeding one another on roads to accomplish their needs.
- Lane · entry 40142
سَابِلٌ
A traveled or beaten road.
Usually occurs in the expression سَبِيلٌ سَابِلَةٌ or an equivalent description of a road used by traffic.
- Lane · entry 40142
سَابِلٌ
Rain falling continuously, in successive showers, in large drops, or copiously.
An adjectival use derived from repeated falling or flowing.
- Lane · entry 40142
سَلْسَبِيلُ
The name of a fountain in Paradise.
A distinct Quranic proper name, not a form of the public headword سَبِيلٌ; the reported Lane citation uses its historical Quran-reference convention.
- Lane · entry 40145
أَسْبَلُ
Having long or hanging hair, including a long beard, moustache hair, or eyelashes.
The feminine form can describe a woman with hair in the moustache area; the adjective can also describe an eye with long lashes.
- Lane · entry 40146
مُسْبِلٌ
One who lengthens a garment and lets it hang or trail to the ground.
Applied to a man or woman according to the garment being made to hang down.
- Lane · entry 40148
مُسْبِلٌ
The penis, by reference to its pendulousness.
A figurative anatomical use.
- Lane · entry 40148
مُسْبِلٌ
The lizard called ضَبّ.
A specialized lexical name reported in the classical vocabulary.
- Lane · entry 40148
مُسْبِلٌ
An arrow used in the game of maysir, identified as the fifth or, according to another report, the sixth arrow.
The arrow is also called المُصْفَحُ and is described as having six notches and six assigned shares or fines.
- Lane · entry 40148
مُسْبِلٌ
A name for the month of Dhū al-Ḥijjah.
A calendrical name associated in the report with the time of ʿĀd.
- Lane · entry 40148
مُسَبَّلٌ
An ugly old man.
The usage is explained as possibly referring to the length of his beard.
- Lane · entry 40149
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The public Quranic form is normalized to the dictionary citation form سَبِيلٌ; inflection, definiteness, attached pronouns, and the plural سُبُلٌ are not separate public forms.
سَلْسَبِيلُ is retained as a distinct lexical proper name rather than merged into the Quranic form سَبِيلٌ.
Lane's printed Quran references use historical citation conventions. The interpretation associated with its citation of the access sense is preserved without inventing a modern verse location not securely supplied for that occurrence.
The plant-name wording in the classical grain-ear discussion is textually compressed and is therefore presented cautiously.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
The Lane plant reference within lane-unit:sbl:40134:g2:main does not identify its precise headword unambiguously; it is assigned cautiously to a spikenard-related classical entry rather than treated as a Quranic form.