Quranic root
خشع
kh · sh · ʿ
The root centers on lowering, bowing, or becoming subdued, especially as expressed through the voice, gaze, posture, or bodily demeanor, and consequently on humility and submission.
The basic sense of physical lowering develops into reverent humility and subdued expression; in broader Classical Arabic it also extends to things that sink, diminish, dry up, or lie low.
- Maqāyīs · row 1585
- Mufradāt · row 409
- 3
- Quran-attested forms
- 6
- Quran senses
- 17
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
خَشَعَ
khashaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To become humble, lowly, or submissive.
In Quranic usage, this may describe the heart becoming humble before God's remembrance or a person attaining a state of humble submission.
- Lane · entry 19166
- Mufradāt · row 409
Selected Quran examples
Quran 57:16word 6
“become humble”
To become still and subdued, especially of the voice.
The Quranic voice construction denotes voices becoming quiet or low rather than merely being physically lowered.
- Lane · entry 19166
- Mufradāt · row 409
Selected Quran examples
Quran 20:108word 7
“And (will be) humbled”
خَاشِعٌ
khāshiʿun
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- Quran occurrences
- 14 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.
Humble, lowly, or submissive.
Applied chiefly to people in a state of reverent submission, including humility expressed through their outward demeanor; it can also describe faces as visibly humbled.
- Lane · entry 19171
- Mufradāt · row 409
Selected Quran examples
Quran 23:2word 5
“(are) humbly submissive”
Having the eyes cast down or the gaze lowered.
This is a Quranic bodily construction in which lowered eyes signify abasement or submission.
- Lane · entry 19171
- Mufradāt · row 409
Selected Quran examples
Quran 79:9word 2
“humbled”
Dry, barren, dusty, and low or still, lacking vegetation.
In the Quranic land construction, the participle describes earth that is lifeless or stripped of herbage, as in 41:39; it is not the human humility sense.
- Lane · entry 19171
Selected Quran examples
Quran 41:39word 6
“barren”
خُشُوعٌ
khushūʿun
- Part of speech
- Verbal 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.
Humility, humble submission, or reverent abasement.
The Quranic verbal noun denotes a state of humility before God, especially as manifested through the bodily faculties and outward demeanor.
- Lane · entry 19166
- Mufradāt · row 409
Selected Quran examples
Quran 17:109word 5
“(in) humility”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:45ٱلْخَـٰشِعِينَthe humble ones
- 3:199خَـٰشِعِينَhumbly submissive
- 17:109خُشُوعًۭا ۩(in) humility
- 20:108وَخَشَعَتِAnd (will be) humbled
- 21:90خَـٰشِعِينَhumbly submissive
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 16 Classical meanings
خَشَعَ
To lower or cast down the eye, sometimes with the gaze directed toward the ground; also to lower the voice in such a demeanor.
This is a bodily or behavioral construction distinct from the Quranic intransitive use of voices becoming still.
- Lane · entry 19166
خَشَعَ
To fear, or to apply the heart attentively and reverently to prayer or supplication.
Used especially of devotional concentration in prayer or invocation.
- Lane · entry 19166
خَشَعَ
To approach the place of setting, sink, or nearly disappear at the setting-place.
Used of stars and similar heavenly bodies.
- Lane · entry 19166
خَشَعَ
To become eclipsed.
Used of the sun.
- Lane · entry 19166
خَشَعَ
To diminish and become lowered or lean, with its fat largely gone.
Used of a camel's hump.
- Lane · entry 19166
خَشَعَ
To wither or dry up.
Used of leaves that wither and of land that dries out for lack of rain.
- Lane · entry 19166
خَشَعَ خَرَاشِيَّ صَدْرِهِ
To eject viscous saliva or phlegm from the chest; the substance may also be described as becoming ejected.
The construction is transitive or intransitive according to whether the ejecting subject or the expelled substance is foregrounded.
- Lane · entry 19166
تَخَشَّعَ
To humble or abase oneself, or to constrain oneself to become lowly and submissive.
The derived form can indicate deliberately adopting or entering a humble state, including in voice or gaze.
- Lane · entry 19167
تَخَاشَعَ
To feign lowliness, humility, or submissiveness.
The feigned display may be in demeanor, voice, or eyes.
- Lane · entry 19168
خُشْعَةٌ
A low hill, a hill or piece of ground lying close to the earth, or certain soft rugged ground; also a rock rising in the sea.
The plural is خُشَعٌ; the term covers several closely related types of low or subdued terrain.
- Lane · entry 19170
خَاشِعٌ
Bowing or bending down the head and body.
This denotes physical inclination rather than merely inward humility.
- Lane · entry 19171
خَاشِعٌ
Fearing.
A lexical extension of humble or submissive demeanor.
- Lane · entry 19171
خَاشِعٌ
Cleaving or adhering to the ground.
Used of a camel's foot.
- Lane · entry 19171
خَاشِعٌ
Cracked and fallen nearly level with the ground.
Used of a wall that has given notice of collapse and then subsided.
- Lane · entry 19171
خَاشِعٌ
Dried up and fallen down upon the ground.
Used of an herb or plant.
- Lane · entry 19171
خَاشِعٌ
Dusty, dry, barren, low, depressed, or still; of a place, desolate and offering no clear place for alighting or abiding.
Used of a place, town, or tract of land. With the feminine form it may describe land whose wind-raised surface effaces tracks, or land lacking green herbage; without the feminine ending it may describe a place to which one cannot find one's way.
- Lane · entry 19171
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The active participle has distinct Quranic constructions: human or facial humility, lowered eyes, and barren or lifeless land; the land sense is specific to its land context.
English renderings such as “humbled” may correspond either to reverent submission or to lowered eyes and faces, so the syntactic subject and construction determine the sense.