Quranic root
خطط
kh · ṭ · ṭ
An extended line, mark, or trace.
The root develops from a mark extending across a surface to writing, marked-out land, paths, striped objects, and related notions of a condition or affair laid out for someone.
- Maqāyīs · row 1608
- Mufradāt · row 417
- 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.
خَطَّ
khaṭṭa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- 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.
To write or inscribe something.
In the attested Quranic construction, the written object is expressed as the object of the verb and the writing instrument or means may be expressed with بِـ.
- Lane · entry 19458
- Mufradāt · row 417
Selected Quran examples
Quran 29:48word 9
“(did) you write it”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 29:48تَخُطُّهُۥ(did) you write it
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 35 Classical meanings
خَطَّ
To draw or make a line or mark on the ground or another surface; in the conventional practice of geomancy, to draw lines for divination.
The geomantic use involves making lines or marks on soft ground and interpreting them.
- Lane · entry 19458
خَطَّ
Figuratively, to deliberate over an affair and consider its possible outcome.
A figurative use based on making lines on the ground while pondering.
- Lane · entry 19458
خَطَّ
To walk or go along.
A tropical construction with the feet or the ground as the complement.
- Lane · entry 19458
خَطَّ عَلَيْهِ
To prohibit something, or to take or appropriate it for oneself.
A construction with عَلَى; the two interpretations are reported for this usage.
- Lane · entry 19458
خَطَّ
To cut or cleave with a sword.
A tropical usage, including cleaving a person or thing in two.
- Lane · entry 19458
خَطَّ اللهُ نَوْءَهَا
In an expression, for the rain-bearing star or asterism to pass over a land and fail to bring it rain.
The form and derivation of this expression are disputed in the transmitted explanations; it is retained as a restricted classical expression rather than a core general sense.
- Lane · entry 19458
خَطَّطَ
To mark with lines, streaks, or stripes; also to weave cloth in stripes or draw lines skillfully.
A Form II derived usage concerning the production or arrangement of lines.
- Lane · entry 19459
اِخْتَطَّ
To mark out and take a plot or place for oneself, settle there, and build upon it; hence, to found a town or similar settlement.
The plot is marked to show that it has been chosen for habitation or construction.
- Lane · entry 19461
اِخْتَطَّ
Of the face or beard, to become marked with lines as the beard grows along the sides of the face.
Applied to the emergence or extension of beard hair on the two sides of the face, especially in a boy or young man.
- Lane · entry 19461
خَطٌّ
A line, streak, or stripe; including a mathematical line and a streak of herbage across the ground.
The noun may refer to a visible difference in color, vegetation, or surface, and is also used in mathematical terminology.
- Lane · entry 19462
خَطٌّ
A track, path, road, or street, including a common thoroughfare.
A line of passage through plain, smooth, or soft ground, or a recognized road or way.
- Lane · entry 19462
خَطٌّ
Writing, handwriting, or the character and particular form of written letters.
This is the nominal writing sense, distinct in headword and category from the Quranic Form I verb.
- Lane · entry 19462
خُطٌّ
The place or territory of a tribe.
- Lane · entry 19463
خُطَّةٌ
An affair, matter, case, event, state, condition, quality, or property; especially a difficult, serious, or evil matter.
The word can denote a circumstance requiring resolution or a condition in which someone finds himself.
- Lane · entry 19465
خُطَّةٌ
A course, way, or line of action.
It may refer to the course one takes in pursuing an affair, including a course of exacting one's due equitably.
- Lane · entry 19465
خُطَّةٌ
A proof, evidence, testimony, argument, plea, or allegation.
A legal or disputational construction equivalent to presenting a حجّة.
- Lane · entry 19465
خُطَّةٌ
An object of desire or purpose that one has resolved to accomplish.
Used of an objective held in mind before undertaking it.
- Lane · entry 19465
خُطَّةٌ
Boldness or readiness to undertake affairs.
- Lane · entry 19465
خُطَّةٌ
Ignorance.
Reported in the expression فِي رَأْسِهِ خُطَّةٌ; some authorities instead interpret that expression as referring to an affair.
- Lane · entry 19465
خِطَّةٌ
A plot of unoccupied land that a person marks and takes for building, habitation, or settlement.
The term includes the marked site and, in some explanations, the house or settlement established there; it underlies descriptions of planned settlements.
- Lane · entry 19466
خِطَّةٌ
The marks or outward signs of generous or honorable qualities.
A figurative plural-based expression referring to qualities displayed in a person.
- Lane · entry 19466
خَطُوطٌ
A wild bull, or another beast that marks the ground with the extremities of its hooves.
A derived descriptive noun centered on the animal's tracks.
- Lane · entry 19467
خَطِيطٌ، خَطِيطَةٌ
Land, or a valley, left without rain between or among areas that have received rain.
The term is also used when one part of an area has received rain and another has not; the derivational relation to this root is disputed in the root-level discussion.
- Lane · entry 19468
خَطِيطَةٌ
A condition of abasement or humiliation.
A figurative use derived from the expression for a rainless strip or condition.
- Lane · entry 19468
خَطِيطَةٌ
A strip of ground differing in roughness or smoothness from the ground on either side.
- Lane · entry 19468
خَطَّاطٌ
A practitioner of geomancy, the divinatory practice of drawing lines.
- Lane · entry 19469
خَطَّاطٌ
A calligrapher or practitioner of the art of writing.
- Lane · entry 19469
خَطِّيَّةٌ
A spear associated with al-Khatt, especially one of the spears brought through that coastal station and sold or straightened there.
A relational adjective used substantively or with رُمْحٌ; it is a geographical designation, not a general description of a marked object.
- Lane · entry 19470
أَخَطُّ
Delicate in beauties.
An attributed tropical adjectival usage.
- Lane · entry 19472
مَخَطٌّ
A place marked with a line, streak, or stripe.
- Lane · entry 19473
مِخَطٌّ
A wooden instrument used for making lines or marks, including the weaver's instrument for marking cloth.
- Lane · entry 19474
مُخَطَّطٌ
Marked with lines, streaks, or stripes.
Applied to garments, dates, wild animals, or other things bearing such markings.
- Lane · entry 19475
مُخَطَّطٌ
Beautiful, especially of a boy whose beard has appeared in lines along the sides of his face.
A tropical adjectival use associated with the marked appearance of the developing beard.
- Lane · entry 19475
مِخْطَاطٌ
A wooden ruler or instrument used to make lines even.
- Lane · entry 19476
مَخْطُوطٌ
A book or similar object written in or upon.
- Lane · entry 19477
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Lane and Maqayis material is supplied under the contracted heading خَط for the canonical geminate root خطط.
The expression خَطَّ اللهُ نَوْءَهَا has disputed transmitted forms and derivation; it is presented only as a restricted classical expression, not as a general Quranic sense.
Unassigned or ambiguous evidence
The rain-missing expression in lane-unit:xTT:19458:g1:sub8 is retained cautiously because Lane reports competing forms and Maqayis treats the rainless-land branch as etymologically separate.