Quranic root
سفه
s · f · h
The root centers on lightness, frivolity, and lack of solidity, especially lightness of judgment or understanding.
The lexical development extends from physical lightness and motion to mental levity, foolishness, and unsound judgment, with further applications to agitation, poor weaving, excessive drinking, delusion, and related forms of instability.
- Maqāyīs · row 2446
- Lane · entry 41427
- 3
- Quran-attested forms
- 5
- 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.
سَفِهَ
safiha
- 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 be foolish or unsound in one's own mind; in the construction سَفِهَ نَفْسَهُ, to debase or lose oneself through such light-mindedness.
The Quranic construction concerns the person's own self or mind. Lexical explanations include being foolish in oneself, making oneself low or contemptible, and losing oneself; these are related interpretations of the same self-directed construction.
- Lane · entry 41421
- Mufradāt · row 701
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:130word 8
“fooled”
سَفَه
safah
- Part of speech
- Verbal 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.
Foolishness or light-mindedness: a deficiency of intellect, understanding, or sound judgment.
An abstract noun for mental foolishness or levity. The Quran applies the concept in accusations of foolishness and to conduct carried out in foolishness; the paired forms سَفَه and سَفَاهَة are treated as lexical variants here.
- Lane · entry 41427
- Mufradāt · row 701
Selected Quran examples
Quran 6:140word 6
“(in) foolishness”
Quran 7:66word 10
“foolishness”
سَفِيه
safīh
- Part of speech
- Adjective / substantivized noun
- Quran occurrences
- 7 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 foolish person, deficient in intellect, understanding, or sound judgment.
In Quranic polemic, the term is used for those who disparage believers or question their divinely directed practice; the rebuttal can identify the accusers themselves as the foolish ones.
- Lane · entry 41429
- Mufradāt · row 701
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:13word 12
“the fools”
Quran 2:142word 2
“the foolish ones”
A person lacking sound worldly judgment or competence in practical and financial affairs.
This use appears in discussions of entrusting property and conducting or receiving financial dictation. The lexical evidence concerns practical judgment and management, not a universal restriction to any particular gender or age.
- Lane · entry 41429
- Mufradāt · row 701
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:282word 40
“(of) limited understanding”
Quran 4:5word 3
“the foolish”
A person foolish or misguided in religious judgment, especially one who speaks impiously about God.
This specifically religious use is attested in the construction سَفِيهُنَا عَلَى اللَّهِ, describing a speaker's religious foolishness or excess.
- Lane · entry 41429
- Mufradāt · row 701
Selected Quran examples
Quran 72:4word 4
“the foolish among us”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:13ٱلسُّفَهَآءُ ۗthe fools
- 2:13ٱلسُّفَهَآءُ(are) the fools
- 2:130سَفِهَfooled
- 2:142ٱلسُّفَهَآءُthe foolish ones
- 2:282سَفِيهًا(of) limited understanding
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 29 Classical meanings
سَفِهَ
To be or become light-minded, witless, or deficient in understanding.
Intransitive Form I usage outside the specifically self-directed Quranic construction.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
To regard truth or right as foolishness, or to ignore it.
The truth or right may occur as the object; this is a broader Classical construction distinct from the Quranic self-directed use.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
To feign ignorance toward someone.
Used with عَلَى in the cited construction.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
To forget one's share or portion.
A Classical Form I use with a person's share as the object.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
To overcome a companion in the contest called مُسَافَهَة.
A specialized competitive or interpersonal construction.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
Of a spear wound or similar injury, to emit blood rapidly and then dry up.
An intransitive description of the behavior of a wound.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
To drink much of a beverage or water without becoming satisfied or quenched.
Used of excessive drinking; the water or beverage is the object.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفِهَ
To be occupied, busied, or diverted from something.
A separate Classical use with the meaning of being preoccupied or, in variant transmission, occupying another.
- Lane · entry 41421
سَفَّهَ
To make someone foolish, declare someone foolish, or attribute foolishness to someone.
Form II causative or denominative usage; it may also describe making a person's gravity or judgment light and unstable.
- Lane · entry 41422
سَافَهَ
To behave foolishly or ignorantly with someone, showing levity and lack of composure.
Form III reciprocal or interpersonal usage.
- Lane · entry 41423
سَافَهَ
To revile someone, or to exchange revilement with him.
A conventional hostile or mutually abusive use, synonymous with verbal abuse.
- Lane · entry 41423
سَافَهَ
To drink repeatedly or immoderately from a jar, waterskin, or beverage.
The construction may describe sitting with a vessel and drinking from it intermittently, or exceeding proper limits in drinking.
- Lane · entry 41423
سَافَهَ
Of a she-camel, to take or keep to a road at a vehement or agile pace.
A specialized usage describing the animal's manner of going.
- Lane · entry 41423
أَسْفَهَ
To find someone to be foolish or light-minded.
Form IV causative or estimative construction with the person judged foolish as object.
- Lane · entry 41424
أَسْفَهَ
To cause someone to drink much without satisfying thirst.
A specialized Form IV drinking construction, also used of causing excessive water or wine consumption.
- Lane · entry 41424
تَسَفَّهَ
To become agitated or to make something move, bend, or incline through wind-like commotion.
Used of winds and of winds ruffling, moving, or bending trees and branches.
- Lane · entry 41425
تَسَفَّهَ
To cause someone to become light-minded or frivolous.
The cited proverbial use describes a younger person inciting an older person to levity.
- Lane · entry 41425
تَسَفَّهَ
To delude or beguile someone out of his property.
Used with عَنْ to describe diverting a person from possession of his wealth by deception.
- Lane · entry 41425
تَسَفَّهَ
To act foolishly or with levity toward someone.
An interpersonal Form V construction.
- Lane · entry 41425
تَسَفَّهَ
To revile someone.
A Form V hostile-speech construction.
- Lane · entry 41425
تَسَافَهَ
To behave foolishly, lightly, or ignorantly with one another.
A reciprocal Form VI construction.
- Lane · entry 41426
تَسَافَهَ
To revile one another or exchange abuse.
A reciprocal hostile-speech construction.
- Lane · entry 41426
تَسَافَهَ
Of the sides of camels' mouths, to cast foam toward one another.
A poetic expression describing swift camels; the transmitted form is reported with some uncertainty in the source.
- Lane · entry 41426
سَفَه
Physical lightness accompanied by movement, commotion, or agitation.
The primary physical sense of the verbal noun, extended to restless motion and agitation.
- Lane · entry 41427
سَفِيه
Of a camel's nose-rein, light or quivering.
A specialized adjectival use based on the rein's movement as the she-camel pulls or shakes it.
- Lane · entry 41429
سَفِيه
Of a garment or cloth, badly woven, thin, flimsy, or scanty in its yarn.
A figurative or specialized adjectival use describing insubstantial weaving.
- Lane · entry 41429
سَافِه
Vehemently thirsty.
A specialized adjectival use applied to a person; it is associated with the root's drinking-related extensions.
- Lane · entry 41431
مُسْفَه
Of a valley, filled with water.
A figurative passive-participial expression for a valley overflowing or filled as though it had exceeded proper bounds.
- Lane · entry 41432
مَسْفَهَة
Food that incites a person to drink much water.
A specialized adjectival description of food that produces excessive thirst or drinking.
- Lane · entry 41433
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane's printed Quran citation in the discussion of سَفِهَ نَفْسَهُ uses historical citation conventions; it is not converted here into a modern verse location. The modern example uses the independently supplied QAC location 2:130.
The Quranic سَفِيه group includes singular and plural surface forms; the public headword is the singular citation form.
Interpretations of السُّفَهَاء in 4:5 include particular demographic applications in the lexical commentary, but the dictionary sense states the underlying property of deficient worldly judgment rather than imposing a gender or age restriction.
The final Form VI poetic expression is reported with uncertainty as possibly تَتَسَافَهُ; its lexical interpretation is retained with that limitation.