Quranic root
خدع
kh · d · ʿ
The root centers on hiding or concealing something, especially a contrary state or intention, so that another person is misled.
From concealment developed deception by presenting one thing while keeping another hidden. The same orientation extends metaphorically to hidden chambers, deceptive creatures or mirages, and things whose true condition is not immediately apparent.
- Maqāyīs · row 1534
- Mufradāt · row 393
- 3
- Quran-attested forms
- 4
- 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.
خَدَعَ
khadaʿa
- 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 conceal or hide a contrary state or intention.
In the Quran-attested construction, concealment is the hidden side of an outward presentation and therefore functions as deception, rather than denoting mere physical hiding.
- Lane · entry 18572
To deceive, delude, beguile, circumvent, or outwit someone by presenting something contrary to what is concealed.
The action may involve making another abandon an intended object through feigned contrary information; the Form I usage can describe deception whether or not the deceiver achieves the intended result.
- Lane · entry 18572
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:9word 6
“they deceive”
Quran 8:62word 4
“deceive you”
خَادَعَ
khādaʿa
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form III
- Form
- III
- 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 seek, attempt, or endeavor to deceive, delude, circumvent, or outwit by displaying one thing while concealing another.
Form III may have an attemptive or reciprocal nuance; the construction does not by itself entail that the attempt succeeds. The Quranic usage presents the hypocrites as attempting deception and presents the divine response as turning that deceit back upon them.
- Lane · entry 18572
- Lane · entry 18574
- Mufradāt · row 393
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:9word 1
“They seek to deceive”
Quran 4:142word 3
“(seek to) deceive”
خَادِعٌ
khādiʿun
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- 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.
Deceiving; one who deceives or responds to another's deceit by deceiving him.
In 4:142, the description of God as خَادِعٌ to them is explained as requiting or turning back their attempted deceit; it is not a claim that God is deceived.
- Lane · entry 18572
- Lane · entry 18590
- Mufradāt · row 393
Selected Quran examples
Quran 4:142word 6
“who deceives them”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:9يُخَـٰدِعُونَThey seek to deceive
- 2:9يَخْدَعُونَthey deceive
- 4:142يُخَـٰدِعُونَ(seek to) deceive
- 4:142خَـٰدِعُهُمْwho deceives them
- 8:62يَخْدَعُوكَdeceive you
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 29 Classical meanings
خَدِيعَةٌ
Deceit, guile, circumvention, or outwitting; also a single act, means, or mode of deception.
The idiom الحرب خدعة describes war as completed or conducted through guile, with variant interpretations emphasizing a single stratagem, a mode of deception, or war's deceptive character.
- Lane · entry 18582
- Lane · entry 18583
- Lane · entry 18588
خَدِيعَةٌ
Prevention, or artifice and cunning in managing affairs; making another relinquish an intended object by feigning the contrary.
This is a specialized consequence or application of deceptive management, not a general synonym for every use of the root.
- Lane · entry 18572
- Lane · entry 18588
خَدَعَ
To double or fold one part of a garment or piece of cloth over another.
Applied to cloth or a similar piece of material.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدَعَ
To hide oneself or retreat into concealment, especially by entering a hole or covert in a tortuous or deceptive manner.
Used especially of a lizard entering its burrow, but also of a gazelle, fox, or person; the lizard's defensive concealment may involve a deceptive maneuver.
- Lane · entry 18572
- Lane · entry 18586
خَدَعَ
To gain mastery over someone.
A resultative use distinct from the ordinary act of deceiving.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدَعَتْ عَيْنُ الشَّمْسِ
Of the sun's disc, to set.
A figurative extension from the hidden or withdrawing movement associated with the root.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدَعَتْ عَيْنُهُ
Of an eye, to sink or become depressed; in an idiomatic extension, to remain without sleep.
This eye-related usage is distinct from the noun خَدْعَةٌ meaning a slumber.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدْعَةٌ
A slumber; in an idiom, a slumber that does not pass into or enter the eye.
Used in expressions describing wakefulness or the absence of sleep.
- Lane · entry 18572
- Lane · entry 18582
خَدَعَ
To vary or become changeable; of a market, to fluctuate between brisk and dull trade, or to become dull; of a price, to become high.
The market usage is reported with both fluctuating and specifically dull interpretations.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدَعَ
To become small, scant, dry, deficient, or corrupt.
Applied to wealth, rain, saliva, and other things whose quantity or condition deteriorates; the resulting sense may include becoming bad or unusable.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدَعَ
To refrain from giving or to refuse after previously giving.
Used of a formerly generous person who stops giving.
- Lane · entry 18572
خَدَعَهُ
To cut or sever the اخدع vein of the neck; hence, to be one whose such vein has been cut.
The اخدعان are concealed veins in the neck associated with the place of cupping.
- Lane · entry 18572
- Lane · entry 18593
- Lane · entry 18598
خَدَّعَ
To deceive repeatedly or intensely; in passive usage, to be repeatedly deceived, especially in war, and thereby become experienced, skilful, cunning, or guileful.
The passive result may describe experience gained through repeated exposure to deception or stratagems.
- Lane · entry 18573
- Lane · entry 18598
خَادَعَ
To make the eye doubt what it sees.
A specialized Form III construction concerning visual uncertainty.
- Lane · entry 18574
خَادَعَ
To forsake or relinquish glory or praise because one is not worthy of it.
The object is expressed as glory or praise in this specialized idiom.
- Lane · entry 18574
أَخْدَعَ
To incite or cause someone to deceive, delude, circumvent, or outwit another, or to feign a contrary intention.
This derived form is reported in a Quranic variant reading, but no corresponding QAC Form IV form group is supplied in the packet.
- Lane · entry 18575
تَخَدَّعَ
To constrain oneself to deceive, delude, circumvent, or outwit.
The form expresses deliberate self-involvement in carrying out the deceptive action.
- Lane · entry 18576
تَخَادَعَ
To deceive or practise guile toward one another; also, to pretend either to be engaged in deceit or to have been deceived.
The reciprocal and pretended-passive uses are conventional extensions of the mutual interaction expressed by Form VI.
- Lane · entry 18577
اِنْخَدَعَ
To become deceived, deluded, circumvented, or outwitted, or to consent to being deceived.
This is a quasi-passive or affected-state use of the root.
- Lane · entry 18578
مَخْدُوعٌ
A person who has been deceived, deluded, circumvented, or outwitted.
The related intensified passive description may refer to someone deceived repeatedly, especially in war, with resulting experience or cunning.
- Lane · entry 18583
- Lane · entry 18598
خَدُوعٌ
Of a she-camel, yielding abundant milk at one time and withholding it at another.
A specialized figurative or assumed-tropical application describing alternating availability.
- Lane · entry 18587
خَادِعٌ
Deceitful or guileful, especially as an epithet for a person or animal; the comparative أَخْدَعُ means more deceitful or guileful.
The forms may describe a deceitful lizard, wolf, or person, without limiting the adjective to any one class of object.
- Lane · entry 18590
- Lane · entry 18591
- Lane · entry 18593
خَادِعٌ
Variable, deceptive, or unreliable; by extension, deficient, defective, corrupt, or difficult to rely upon.
Applied to fortune or time, opinions and dispositions, markets, roads and water, years, prices, food, coins, and other things whose apparent or changing condition misleads or disappoints.
- Lane · entry 18590
خَيْدَعٌ
A deceitful or untrustworthy person or creature; also the mirage, and by extension a cat or a very guileful ghoul.
The mirage sense concerns something that appears to promise what it does not provide; the creature applications preserve the associated notion of guile or unreliability.
- Lane · entry 18591
خَادِعَةٌ
A small door set within a larger door.
A specialized architectural noun.
- Lane · entry 18592
أَخْدَعٌ
The اخدع, one of the concealed veins at the side or back of the neck, especially in the place of cupping.
Usually used in the dual for the pair of veins; some authorities identify them with the jugular veins.
- Lane · entry 18593
شَدِيدُ الأَخْدَعِ
Resistant, unyielding, or uncompliant.
An idiomatic extension from the neck-vein expression.
- Lane · entry 18593
أَخْدَعٌ
Pride or haughtiness expressed through turning away; to relinquish such pride is to straighten or set right one's اخدع.
This is an idiomatic, figurative use of the anatomical term.
- Lane · entry 18593
مُخْدَعٌ
A closet or small chamber within a larger chamber, used to keep or preserve something.
The word is connected lexically with concealment because the inner chamber hides what is stored in it; مَخْدَعٌ and مِخْدَعٌ are reported as variant forms or related entries.
- Lane · entry 18595
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
Lane's Quran citations use historical citation conventions; modern verse and word locations in the examples are taken only from the supplied QAC occurrences.
The Form IV entry reports a Quranic variant reading, but no QAC Form IV group is present, so that evidence is retained among broader derived Classical meanings rather than assigned to a Quranic form.