Quranic root
سهو
s · h · w
The root's main semantic orientation is heedlessness or inattention, with an associated notion of stillness and ease.
The heedlessness branch extends to unmindful or neglectful action and, in Form III, to accommodating social conduct. Classical Arabic also preserves related stillness and gentleness uses alongside specialized lexical branches that are treated as divergent or only tentatively connected to the main principle.
- Maqāyīs · row 2517
- Lane · entry 42560
- Lane · entry 42561
- 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.
سَاهٍ
sāhin
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
Heedless, inattentive, forgetful, or neglectful; failing to attend to what one should attend to.
The participle describes a person characterized by heedlessness, including being immersed in heedlessness and being heedless of prayer. The lexical tradition distinguishes a slight lapse from complete forgetting and involuntary heedlessness from neglect for which one is blameworthy; these are contextual nuances of the same use. The construction may occur with عَنْ for being heedless or neglectful of something and with فِي for being heedless within a state or activity.
- Lane · entry 42560
- Lane · entry 42571
- Mufradāt · row 732
Selected Quran examples
Quran 51:11word 5
“(of) heedlessness”
Quran 107:5word 5
“(are) neglectful”
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 16 Classical meanings
سَهَا
In the idiom حَمَلَتْ سَهْوًا, to conceive during menstruation.
A rare idiomatic use describing conception occurring during menstruation.
- Lane · entry 42560
سَهْوٌ
Stillness, quiet, gentleness, and unforced ease; something done freely or calmly; ease or compliant gentleness in a person, affair, desired object, riding animal, water, bow, wind, or soft land.
An adjectival and adverbial branch covering quiet, mild, yielding, or easy qualities and action performed without constraint.
- Lane · entry 42560
- Lane · entry 42564
سَهَا
To look with a motionless eye; of the eye, to range or expand its gaze.
Used of a person's fixed gaze or of the eye extending its view.
- Lane · entry 42560
سَهَاوَةٌ
Ease of riding, as a quality of a camel.
A specialized noun describing the camel's easy ridability.
- Lane · entry 42560
سَهَا
In a fixed expression, to be too numerous to number or compute; of a people or group, by extension, not to be reckoned with or mentioned.
Occurs in idiomatic expressions applied especially to cattle or to an uncountable multitude.
- Lane · entry 42560
سَاهَاهُ
To deal with another in an unguarded, easy, moderate, or good-natured way; to refrain from pushing social intercourse to its utmost.
A Form III reciprocal or interpersonal construction. It can be explained as interacting in the manner of one who is heedless, or as accommodating and behaving well in social intercourse.
- Lane · entry 42561
سَاهَاهُ
To mock or deride another.
A distinct Form III transitive use with another person as object.
- Lane · entry 42561
أَسْهَى
To construct a سَهْوَة in a house or chamber.
A Form IV architectural verb taking the structure called a سَهْوَة as its object.
- Lane · entry 42562
السُّهَا
A certain dim star in the asterism of the Great Bear.
A traditional star-name, also commonly written السُّهَى; its diminutive is السُّهَيَّا.
- Lane · entry 42563
سِهْوٌ
The moon.
A dialectal usage attributed to the Nabataeans.
- Lane · entry 42564
سَهْوَةٌ
An instance or case of unmindfulness, forgetfulness, neglect, heedlessness, or inadvertence.
The concrete noun for an occurrence of the heedlessness branch.
- Lane · entry 42566
سَهْوَةٌ
A rock or great mass of stone, especially one standing up without being founded in the ground.
A dialectal usage; in the dialect of Ṭayyiʾ it may also denote a single stone, whether large or small.
- Lane · entry 42566
سَهْوَةٌ
A booth, shelter, recess, closet, storeroom, shelf-like structure, canopy, or screen associated with a house or watering place.
The term covers several related architectural structures, including a shelter at a watering place, a recess or small chamber between rooms, a storage space, and a screen or curtained enclosure.
- Lane · entry 42566
سِهْوَاءٌ
A portion of the night, especially its first part.
A temporal noun used in expressions referring to a short period after the night has begun. One tentative analysis connects it with a period when people are unmindful of where things are sought, but the established usage is temporal.
- Lane · entry 42568
سَاهِيَةٌ
A broad, open tract of land without trees or other cover to obstruct the view.
A descriptive noun for exposed, unobstructed terrain.
- Lane · entry 42572
أَسَاهِيُّ
Various sorts or kinds; especially different kinds of camel pace.
A plural reported without a singular in one account; the camel-related use denotes varieties of gait.
- Lane · entry 42574
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The public headword is the singular active participle سَاهٍ, normalized from the Quranic plural سَاهُونَ; both supplied Quran occurrences are plural active participles.
Several rare, dialectal, and idiomatic Classical Arabic branches are listed separately and should not be inferred as additional meanings of the Quranic active participle.