Quranic root
وحش
w · ḥ · sh
A semantic orientation opposed to human familiarity and sociability: wildness, estrangement from people, and the absence of human company.
This orientation extends to untamed animals, deserted places, solitude, and social or emotional estrangement. Related lexical developments also include the desert or outer side of a thing, hunger, and casting off burdens.
- Maqāyīs · row 5047
- Mufradāt · row 1560
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- Quran senses
- 1
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
وَحْشٌ
waḥshun
- Part of speech
- Noun
- 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.
Wild animals; untamed creatures not accustomed to human company.
The Quranic occurrence is the plural وُحُوشٌ and refers collectively to wild animals.
- Lane · entry 45066
- Mufradāt · row 1560
Selected Quran examples
Quran 81:5word 2
“the wild beasts”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 81:5ٱلْوُحُوشُthe wild beasts
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 21 Classical meanings
وَحُشَ
Of a place: to abound with wild animals.
Form I intransitive usage describing a place or abode.
- Lane · entry 45060
وَحَشَ
To throw away a garment, weapon, or other burden, or cast it to a distance, in order to lighten oneself or one's mount.
Form I usage with a thing discarded to reduce one’s load.
- Lane · entry 45060
أَوْحَشَ
To become desolate, deserted, or without human inhabitants; or to find a place desolate.
Form IV; it may describe a place becoming empty or someone finding land deserted.
- Lane · entry 45062
أَوْحَشَ
To become hungry; of provisions, to be spent or exhausted; or to make oneself hungry by emptying the stomach.
The self-imposed hunger may be for the purpose of taking medicine.
- Lane · entry 45062
أَوْحَشَ
To make someone lonely or solitary, with associated sadness, disquiet, or fear.
Transitive Form IV causative usage.
- Lane · entry 45062
تَوَحَّشَ
To become wild, shy, or socially withdrawn; of a person, to become unsociable or unfamiliar like a wild animal.
Form V usage applies both to animals becoming wild and to people becoming socially withdrawn.
- Lane · entry 45063
اِسْتَوْحَشَ
To feel loneliness or solitude, or to feel a want for something.
Form X experiential usage.
- Lane · entry 45064
اِسْتَوْحَشَ
To fear something or someone; to be shy of, averse to, or socially withdrawn from it or him.
Form X with مِنْ or عَنْ may express fear, shyness, aversion, or unfamiliarity.
- Lane · entry 45064
اِسْتَوْحَشَ
To deem a word, sound, or similar expression strange or uncouth.
A usage applied to language or other unfamiliar expression.
- Lane · entry 45064
وَحْشٌ
Desolate, deserted, or without human inhabitants.
An adjective applied to land, regions, places, and houses.
- Lane · entry 45066
وَحْشٌ
Wild, shy, or untamed, applied to girls or women.
An adjectival usage explicitly applied to female persons.
- Lane · entry 45066
وَحْشٌ
Alone or solitary, without company.
Used of a person being or moving alone.
- Lane · entry 45066
وَحْشٌ
Hungry, with an empty stomach.
An adjectival usage describing lack of food.
- Lane · entry 45066
وَحْشَةٌ
Loneliness or solitude, together with the sadness, grief, fear, or social estrangement associated with it.
The noun can denote lonesomeness itself, distress arising from it, or remoteness between people and lack of affection.
- Lane · entry 45068
وَحْشِيٌّ
Of or belonging to the desert; wild, untamed, undomesticated, uncivilized, or unfamiliar.
An adjectival or epithetic form whose descriptive quality may predominate over the noun it modifies.
- Lane · entry 45069
وَحْشِيٌّ
Unfamiliar, uncouth, or nonstandard in speech or wording.
Used of language, a word, or an expression.
- Lane · entry 45069
وَحْشِيٌّ
The side of a thing away from the person; of a limb or foot, the outer or back side; and of a bow, its back or the side against which the arrow does not lie.
The general right-or-left designation varies by authority; the specialized limb and bow usages concern the outer or non-facing side.
- Lane · entry 45069
وَحْشِيٌّ
A small mountain or remote-valley fig, occurring in black, red, or white varieties.
A specific botanical usage; the fruit is described as drying the mouth when freshly picked.
- Lane · entry 45069
وَحْشِيَّةٌ
A wind that enters a person’s clothes because of its vehemence.
A conventional descriptive use for a forceful wind.
- Lane · entry 45069
وَحْشَانُ
Sad or sorrowful.
Recorded as an adjective applied to a man.
- Lane · entry 45070
أَرْضٌ مَوْحُوشَةٌ
Land having or abounding in wild animals.
A descriptive phrase for a wild-animal-inhabited tract; it is distinct from land made desolate by the departure of people.
- Lane · entry 45073
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic occurrence is the plural وُحُوشٌ, while the public headword is the normalized singular وَحْشٌ.
The directional interpretation of وَحْشِيٌّ varies in general usage between right and left by authority; its specialized limb and bow usages concern the outer or non-facing side.