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Quranic root

سلسل

s · l · s · l

The root centers on drawing or extending something gently and discreetly, with related developments involving extraction, stealth, connected links, and smooth flowing.

From the basic notion of gently drawing something out or along, the lexicon develops meanings such as theft, offspring drawn from a parent, chains formed by connected links, flowing water, and elongated or successive forms.

  • Maqāyīs · row 2463
1
Quran-attested forms
1
Quran senses
3
Quran occurrences

Forms in the Quran

The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.

سِلْسِلَة

silsilah

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.

  1. A chain, a series of connected metal rings or links.

    In the supplied Quran occurrences, the word appears in both singular and plural inflections and refers to chains used as instruments of restraint or punishment.

    • Lane · entry 41714
    Selected Quran examples

    Quran 40:71word 5

    and the chains

    Quran 69:32word 3

    a chain

    Quran 76:4word 4

    chains

Occurrences in the Quran

Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.

  • 40:71وَٱلسَّلَـٰسِلُand the chains
  • 69:32سِلْسِلَةٍۢa chain
  • 76:4سَلَـٰسِلَا۟chains
View all 3 occurrences

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 53 Classical meanings
  • سَلَّ

    To draw or pull something out or forth, especially gently, as a sword from its scabbard or a hair from dough.

    Also used of drawing something away from another thing; the active participle سَالٌّ denotes one who draws out and, by extension, a thief.

    • Lane · entry 41690
    • Lane · entry 41719
  • سَلَّ

    To take or convey something away, including conveying a dead body head-first to the grave.

    This is a related use of taking or drawing something forth rather than a Quranic meaning of the supplied nominal.

    • Lane · entry 41690
  • سَلَّ

    To steal, especially covertly, secretly, or clandestinely.

    The meaning occurs with Form I and Form IV expressions, the noun سَلَّة, and agent nouns for a thief; it can include subtle or concealed theft.

    • Lane · entry 41690
    • Lane · entry 41691
    • Lane · entry 41701
    • Lane · entry 41719
    • Lane · entry 41724
  • سَلَّ

    To lose one's teeth or have one's teeth fall out.

    Applied to a person and, in the cited lexical descriptions, also to sheep, goats, and an extremely aged she-camel.

    • Lane · entry 41690
    • Lane · entry 41698
  • سُلَّ

    To be affected by the disease سِلّ, an emaciating and often fatal wasting disease identified in medical usage with pulmonary ulceration or consumption.

    The passive and derived forms may describe a person affected by the disease; the lexical tradition also includes the disease noun سِلّ and related forms.

    • Lane · entry 41690
    • Lane · entry 41691
    • Lane · entry 41700
    • Lane · entry 41725
  • إِسْلَال

    An open raid or predatory incursion.

    A specialized nominal use distinct from the related meanings of theft and bribery.

    • Lane · entry 41691
  • أَسَلَّ

    To aid another person in stealing, including stealing secretly or clandestinely.

    This is a causative or assistive construction associated with theft.

    • Lane · entry 41691
  • تَسَلَّلَ

    To be or become agitated, disturbed, or in a state of commotion.

    The lexicographical explanation relates the agitation metaphorically to repeated drawing out.

    • Lane · entry 41692
  • اِنْسَلَّ

    To slip or come out gently from a container, fastening, or surrounding object.

    Examples include a sword slipping from its scabbard and a horse's leading-rope coming out of a person's hand.

    • Lane · entry 41693
  • اِنْسَلَّ

    To slip away, withdraw, or go forth secretly and gradually from among people or from before someone.

    The construction can also mean to leave deliberately, leisurely, or by degrees, and to go away with something covertly.

    • Lane · entry 41693
  • اِسْتَسَلَّ

    Of a river, to branch into a smaller stream or rivulet.

    The construction describes a watercourse producing a subsidiary channel.

    • Lane · entry 41695
  • سَلْسَلَة

    The state or act of connecting one thing with another.

    This is the abstract verbal-noun use from which the concrete chain designation is explained; it is broader than the Quranic concrete noun use.

    • Lane · entry 41696
  • سَلْسَلَة

    To bind or fasten someone with a chain.

    A conventional transitive construction using the concrete chain noun.

    • Lane · entry 41696
  • سَلْسَلَة

    To pour or run into the throat, or to run down a declivity or channel.

    The related Form V expression is used of water entering the throat or flowing down a slope.

    • Lane · entry 41696
    • Lane · entry 41697
  • سَلْسَلَ

    Not to eat food, literally as though one did not pour it into the throat.

    An idiomatic negative expression explained through the swallowing or flowing-water sense.

    • Lane · entry 41696
  • سَلْسَلَة

    A long piece or strip of a camel's hump.

    A specialized food or anatomical term reported for this headword and its related vocalizations.

    • Lane · entry 41696
    • Lane · entry 41713
  • تَسَلْسَلَ

    To become rippled or marked in successive formations resembling a chain.

    Used of water in a shallow or rugged bed, or water rippled by wind; also of a rippled pool.

    • Lane · entry 41697
    • Lane · entry 41710
  • سِلْسِلَة

    An elongated or successive formation resembling a chain, including streams of lightning, extended or accumulated sands, and similar visible formations.

    These are figurative or assumed-tropical extensions of the chain image rather than the concrete metal-chain sense.

    • Lane · entry 41697
    • Lane · entry 41714
    • Lane · entry 41726
  • مُسَلْسَل

    Marked by successive waves, streaks, lines, or grain resembling linked chains.

    Applied especially to the glistening marks of a sword and to other patterned or striped surfaces.

    • Lane · entry 41726
  • مُسَلْسَل

    Of a garment or cloth, worn until it becomes thin.

    This is a figurative extension associated with repeated use and thinning.

    • Lane · entry 41697
    • Lane · entry 41726
    • Lane · entry 41727
  • السِّلّ

    To waste away physically, and figuratively to suffer diminution or loss of property.

    The property-loss expression is an explicitly marked metaphor based on the wasting effects of the disease سِلّ.

    • Lane · entry 41700
  • سَلَّة

    The drawing or unsheathing of swords; by extension, the occasion of drawing swords.

    A conventional event noun in expressions describing an armed encounter.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلَّة

    A horse's rush among other horses or its burst of speed in an attempt to outstrip them.

    This is a specialized equestrian use, marked in the source as figurative.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلَّة

    A horse's revulsion or rebound of shortness of breath in the chest after suppressing it.

    A specialized veterinary or equestrian expression describing the expulsion of constrained breath during exertion.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلَّة

    In a sheep or goat, power or force of long continuance.

    A specialized animal description reported in connection with the passive participle مَسْلُولَة.

    • Lane · entry 41701
    • Lane · entry 41725
  • سَلَّة

    A basket or receptacle, especially one used for carrying fruit or bread.

    The entry includes a basket made in the form of a جُونَة and the familiar bread-basket designation.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلَّة

    A fault, defect, or breach in a watering-trough, tank, or similar vessel.

    The breach may be located between the stones or supports forming the interior of the watering structure.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلَّة

    Fissures in the ground that absorb or imbibe water.

    A specialized topographical use distinct from a breach in a constructed trough.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلَّة

    Sewing a hide or skin with two thongs through a single puncture or stitch-hole.

    A technical craft term.

    • Lane · entry 41701
  • سَلِيل

    A drawn sword.

    The noun is understood as something drawn forth, but the sword designation is a specialized lexical use.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سَلِيل

    A child or offspring, understood as one drawn forth from its parent.

    The related feminine form is used for a daughter; the source also explains the term through extraction from the mother or parental substance.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سَلِيل

    A colt, filly, or newly born camel whose sex has not yet been determined.

    These are specialized animal terms; the colt and filly distinction follows the cited lexical descriptions.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سَلِيل

    A clear, pure, cool, or easily descending beverage or wine.

    The word may describe a beverage cleared of turbidity or impurities, especially the beverage or wine of Paradise in the cited usage.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سَلِيل

    A water channel or main flow in a valley; also a wide or deep valley, or a low place where water collects.

    The lexicon records several related topographical applications, including a narrow torrent channel and a water-bearing valley.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سَلِيل

    To travel swiftly, in the idiom describing a valley as flowing with people.

    This is an explicitly marked figurative interpretation of a poetic expression.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سَلِيل

    Various elongated bodily portions, including a horse's brain, a camel's hump, the spinal cord, and certain strips of flesh.

    These are specialized anatomical or culinary applications of the extraction and elongated-strip imagery.

    • Lane · entry 41704
  • سُلَالَة

    An extract drawn from a thing; by extension, its pure, choice, or best portion.

    The cited Quranic expression uses this headword for what is drawn forth from earth or clay; the packet supplies no separate QAC form group for سُلَالَة.

    • Lane · entry 41705
  • سُلَالَة

    Semen or the generative fluid drawn from the human body.

    A specialized anatomical and reproductive use of the extraction noun.

    • Lane · entry 41705
  • سَلِيلَة

    A sinew or an elongated portion or strip of flesh, including flesh alongside the backbone.

    The plural may denote long strips or streaks of flesh extending with the backbone.

    • Lane · entry 41706
  • سَلِيلَة

    Oblong portions of dried mucus or similar matter in the nose.

    A specialized plural use.

    • Lane · entry 41706
  • سَلِيلَة

    A portion of separated goat hair drawn out and prepared for spinning.

    The term describes hair divided, folded, tied, and drawn out portion by portion for spinning.

    • Lane · entry 41706
  • سَلِيلَة

    A certain long fish with a long beak-like snout.

    A specialized zoological use.

    • Lane · entry 41706
  • سَلَّال

    A maker of baskets or similar woven receptacles.

    This meaning is reported tentatively in the lexical entry rather than as an unqualified primary definition.

    • Lane · entry 41709
  • سَلْسَل

    Sweet, clear, cool water that enters the throat easily; also mellow wine.

    The term emphasizes sweetness, clarity, coolness, or ease of swallowing, with related forms used for wine.

    • Lane · entry 41710
    • Lane · entry 41715
    • Lane · entry 41717
    • Lane · entry 41718
  • سُلْسُل

    A light, active boy or young man.

    A specialized personal-description noun.

    • Lane · entry 41711
  • سِلْسِلَة

    A small spotted reptile or lizard with a slender tail.

    A specialized zoological meaning distinct from the chain noun.

    • Lane · entry 41714
  • مُسَلْسَل

    Hair that is rippled, curly, twisted, or contracted.

    This is a figurative extension comparing hair texture to successive ripples or links.

    • Lane · entry 41726
  • حَدِيثٌ مُسَلْسَل

    A report transmitted through an uninterrupted, repeated chain of transmitters.

    A technical hadith expression describing successive transmitters linked by a recurring transmission formula or circumstance.

    • Lane · entry 41726
  • مَسَلّ

    A slender object likened to something drawn out, such as a green palm-stick removed from its sheath or a sword drawn from its scabbard.

    A conventional expression using an infinitive in the sense of a passive participle.

    • Lane · entry 41722
  • مِسَلَّة

    A large needle, especially a packing-needle.

    The plural is مَسَالّ.

    • Lane · entry 41723
  • مَسْلُول

    A man whose testicles have been extracted.

    An elliptical anatomical use derived from the notion of extraction.

    • Lane · entry 41725
  • إِسْلَال

    A bribe, or the giving or receiving of a bribe.

    A distinct nominal use recorded alongside an alternative interpretation of theft in the cited traditional expression.

    • Lane · entry 41721
  • مُسَلْسَل

    Having parts or portions connected one with another; chained or bound with a chain.

    The connected-parts sense is general, while the bound sense is a concrete application to a person or object restrained by a chain.

    • Lane · entry 41726

Cautions

Points that affect how this root should be read.

  • The supplied QAC packet contains the nominal form سِلْسِلَة only; related Quran-attested lexical material for سُلَالَة in Lane is therefore retained under other classical meanings rather than assigned to a generated Quranic form.

  • Lane's Quran citation for سُلَالَة is preserved as lexical evidence without converting its historical citation notation into an unverified modern verse location.

  • The reported basket-maker meaning of سَلَّال is explicitly tentative in the lexical evidence.

  • One Lane editorial unit reports a disputed bribery interpretation for أَسْلَلَ; it is not treated as established evidence for the Form IV verb.

Unassigned or ambiguous evidence

  • lane-unit:slsl:41691:g1:sub5 reports, but questions, an interpretation of أَسْلَلَ as receiving a bribe; the report is retained as ambiguous rather than assigned to the established bribe meaning of إِسْلَال.