Quranic root
ثور
th · w · r
The root is oriented primarily toward emergence, rising, or being brought up and into motion; it also contains a distinct lexical branch for the bovine animal.
The emergence principle extends to things rising or spreading, people or animals being roused, causative raising and stirring, and the cultivation or turning of earth. The bovine noun is treated as a separate lexical branch, with some figurative extensions.
- Maqāyīs · row 1056
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 5
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
أَثَارَ
ʾathāra
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form IV
- Form
- IV
- Quran occurrences
- 5 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.
To raise, stir up, or cause to spread, especially dust or clouds.
Used causatively with dust, clouds, and similar phenomena; the Quranic contexts include raising dust and causing clouds to spread or rise.
- Mufradāt · row 214
- Lane · entry 27657
Selected Quran examples
To till or plough the land, turning up its soil.
Used with the earth or land in an agricultural construction; the Quranic usage concerns working and turning the ground rather than merely causing a visible cloud or dust to rise.
- Mufradāt · row 214
- Lane · entry 27657
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:71word 8
“to plough”
Quran 30:9word 16
“and they dug”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:71تُثِيرُto plough
- 30:9وَأَثَارُوا۟and they dug
- 30:48فَتُثِيرُso they raise
- 35:9فَتُثِيرُso that they raise
- 100:4فَأَثَرْنَThen raise
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 34 Classical meanings
ثَارَ
To rise, become stirred or excited, or come into motion; of dust, smoke, redness, or similar things, to rise, appear, and spread; of a recumbent camel, bird, or swarm of locusts, to rise from its resting place.
An intransitive Form I verb covering emergence, rising, and becoming active in the constructions attested here.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَارَ
To leap or spring toward someone or something; to rush upon or hasten to do evil.
Used with إِلَى or بِـ and related directional or adversarial constructions.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَارَ
To gush or flow forth with force, said of water.
The subject is flowing water.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَارَ
To appear or mount visibly, said of blood, especially when it rises into or mantles the face.
A conventional bodily construction describing visible blood or flushing.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَارَ
To break out, spread, or become manifest, said of measles, mouth-pustules, or fever.
Used for the outward appearance or flare-up of an illness or its symptoms.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَارَ
To heave or become agitated, especially with a tendency to vomit, said of the soul or stomach.
A bodily reaction involving rising or agitation of the stomach.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَارَ
To become aroused, inflamed, or sharply agitated, said of anger, discord, evil, or mischief.
Used of emotional or social disturbance becoming active or spreading.
- Lane · entry 27654
ثَوَّرَ
To search, investigate, scrutinize, or inquire into an affair; to investigate the Quran and meditate on or seek knowledge of its meanings.
The Quran expression ثَوَّرَ القُرْآنَ denotes diligent investigation of its reading, interpretation, and meanings; this is a Form II usage and is not an additional QAC form group in the packet.
- Lane · entry 27655
ثَاوَرَ
To leap upon, assault, or assail someone.
A Form III reciprocal or directed assault construction, with the person attacked as its object.
- Lane · entry 27656
أَثَارَ
To raise, rouse, excite, or provoke a person, animal, or object; also to draw forth or disinter something buried.
These broader causative uses include rousing a person or recumbent camel, stirring a pursued animal, and exhuming or digging up a buried thing; they are distinct from the Quranic cloud-and-dust and agricultural uses listed above.
- Lane · entry 27657
أَثَارَ
To scrape up earth or dust with the legs.
Said of a beast whose legs throw up the ground or dust.
- Lane · entry 27657
أَثَارَ
To excite discord, dissension, evil, or mischief, and to bring it into manifestation.
A causative social or moral construction with discord, evil, or mischief as the object.
- Lane · entry 27657
ثَوْرٌ
A bull; also a cow.
The ordinary animal noun, with the attested plural patterns belonging to this lexical item.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
The constellation Taurus, one of the signs of the zodiac.
A figurative or conventional astronomical use of the bovine noun.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
A lord, master, chief, or leading person of a people.
A figurative honorific use; the evidence does not establish that it is a general title in every context.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
A stupid, foolish, or dull person of little understanding.
A figurative characterization of a person as lacking sense.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
A person possessed by a devil, insane, or mad.
An attributed figurative use equating the person with a state of possession or madness.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
A piece or large piece of aqit, hardened and congealed milk.
A food noun distinct from the bovine meaning.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
The green growth covering stale water, or small rubbish and broken particles floating on its surface.
The expression ثَوْرُ المَاءِ refers to material lying on the surface of water; the sources record more than one interpretation of the cited poetic example.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
Pimples or small pustules breaking out in the mouth of a fevered person.
A specialized bodily noun referring to an eruption in the mouth.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرُ الشَّفَقِ
The spreading redness appearing and rising above the horizon after sunset.
A conventional expression for the visible twilight glow.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثَوْرٌ
The white crescent or whiteness in the lower part of a person's nail.
A specialized anatomical use.
- Lane · entry 27662
ثِيرٌ
A covering or film over the eye.
Used of an opacity or layer lying upon the eye.
- Lane · entry 27663
ثَوْرَةٌ
An excitement, upheaval, or state of agitation.
A noun denoting an active disturbance that may later become stilled.
- Lane · entry 27664
ثَوْرَةٌ
A large number, great quantity, or abundance of people, wealth, camels, or similar things.
A quantitative noun; the evidence distinguishes abundance in general from the more specific wealth noun ثَرْوَةٌ.
- Lane · entry 27664
ثَوَّارَةٌ
The body part called the خَوْرَان.
A specialized anatomical term.
- Lane · entry 27665
ثَائِرٌ
Emerging from the dust or earth, especially of locusts just coming forth before they have wings.
Attested in the expression دَبًى ثَائِرٌ.
- Lane · entry 27666
ثَائِرُ الرَّأْسِ
Having hair that spreads out, stands up, or is shaggy and dishevelled.
A descriptive expression for disordered hair.
- Lane · entry 27666
ثَائِرٌ
Having the external jugular veins or neck sinews and veins swollen and prominent from anger.
A bodily sign of anger or agitation, attested in a conventional descriptive expression.
- Lane · entry 27666
ثَائِرٌ
Angry or aroused to anger.
An adjectival use describing a person in an angry state.
- Lane · entry 27666
ثَائِرٌ
Anger, rage, or an ebullition of passion.
A substantivized use, especially in the expression ثَارَ ثَائِرُهُ, whose meaning is that his anger became aroused or inflamed.
- Lane · entry 27666
مُثَارَةٌ
Ploughed-up land.
A passive participial expression describing ground that has been turned by ploughing.
- Lane · entry 27667
مَثْوَرَةٌ
Land abounding in bulls or cows.
A specialized descriptive expression for land characterized by its bovine population.
- Lane · entry 27668
مُثِيرَةٌ
A cow that tills the ground; likewise, a bull used for tilling.
An active participial noun for a bovine employed in agricultural work.
- Lane · entry 27669
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The QAC group contains inflected Form IV occurrences; the public headword is normalized to the perfect-tense citation form أَثَارَ.
The Quranic Form IV uses distinguish raising or spreading dust and clouds from tilling or turning the earth; contextual English glosses alone are not treated as separate senses.
The noun ثَوْرٌ includes a bovine branch distinct from the verbal emergence-and-raising branch.