Quranic root
خلع
kh · l · ʿ
Separation of a thing from what covers, envelops, or supports it.
The concrete idea of taking something off develops into removal from office or allegiance, release from bonds, marital separation by compensation, disowning, displacement, and figurative removal of the heart through fear.
- Maqāyīs · row 1635
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 3
- 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.
خَلَعَ
khalaʿa
- 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 pull off, take off, or remove an item.
The Quranic imperative concerns removing the sandals from the feet; the same lexical use applies to taking clothing or another attached item off its wearer or place.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Mufradāt · row 431
Selected Quran examples
Quran 20:12word 4
“so remove”
In a figurative interpretation of the command, to remain, settle, or become firmly established; alternatively, to empty the heart of concern for family and property.
These are reported figurative interpretations of the Quranic command in 20:12, distinct from the literal removal of the sandals.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Mufradāt · row 431
To dissolve a marriage at the wife’s request in return for a ransom, property, gift, or other compensation.
This is the marital khulʿ construction: the wife releases herself from the marriage by giving compensation, and related reciprocal or derived expressions describe the husband and wife or the divorced woman. The Quran-linked lexical evidence is preserved without assigning an unverified modern verse location.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19867
- Lane · entry 19869
- Lane · entry 19871
- Lane · entry 19873
- Lane · entry 19875
- Lane · entry 19883
- Lane · entry 19889
خَلَعَ
khalaʿa
- Part of speech
- Classical senses under the same headword
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 0 occurrences
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 20:12فَٱخْلَعْso remove
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 42 Classical meanings
خَلَعَ عَلَيْهِ
To bestow or give someone a garment, especially a robe of honor.
The meaning of giving is supplied by the preposition عَلَى; it is not inherent in the verb by itself.
- Lane · entry 19865
خَلَعَ العِذَارَ
To throw off restraint and act without control, heed, or fear of blame.
Used literally of an animal throwing off its halter and figuratively of a person acting wantonly or wrongfully.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19880
- Lane · entry 19883
خَلَعَ أَوْصَالَهُ
To remove the bones or articulated parts of something.
A specialized physical use reported for the bones or joints called أَوْصَال.
- Lane · entry 19865
خَلَعَ مَالَ صَاحِبِهِ
To take away a companion’s property in gambling.
A specialized gambling expression in which the winner takes the other player’s property.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19880
خُلْعَةٌ
The choice or best part of property, camels, or similar possessions.
Figurative usage explains the term by its power to attract the beholder’s heart.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19875
خَلَعَ قَيْدَهُ
To remove shackles or release a person or animal from them.
The expression can describe taking off one’s own fetters or freeing another from restraints.
- Lane · entry 19865
خَلَعَ الرِّبْقَةَ
To annul, dissolve, or break a compact, covenant, league, or confederacy.
The compact is conceptualized as a bond or restraint that can be removed.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19869
خَلَعَ يَدًا مِنْ طَاعَةٍ
To throw off allegiance or forsake obedience to a superior.
A conventional figurative expression comparing obedience to a garment that can be cast off; it may describe wrongful rebellion or repudiation.
- Lane · entry 19865
خَلَعَ الوَالِيَ
To divest a ruler or office-holder of authority, remove him from office, or depose him.
The usage is especially associated with an inferior’s forsaking or casting off a superior; direct deposition by a prince is reported as uncommon in this expression.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19870
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A person cast off, repudiated, or disowned by family, a father, or confederates, with the associated release of responsibility for his offenses.
The term can also describe someone alienated from or broken off from his family or confederates.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلُعَ
To become cast off, repudiated, or estranged from one’s family; to become alienated.
This is the intransitive state corresponding to being disowned; the sources also associate it with a dissolute or immoral condition.
- Lane · entry 19865
خَالِعٌ
A twisting, dislocation, or disease of the hock tendon, especially in a camel unable to rise.
A camel is described as having خَالِعٌ when the condition prevents it from rising after kneeling.
- Lane · entry 19865
- Lane · entry 19883
تَخَلَّعَ
To come off, fall off, or become separated from its attachment; to come apart at its joints or points of joining.
Used of a bond or chain coming off a limb and of a ship or other structure becoming disjointed.
- Lane · entry 19868
تَخَلَّعَ فِي مِشْيَتِهِ
To walk with loose or shaking movements, as though the joints were coming apart.
The construction describes shaking the shoulder-joints and arms, or a gait associated with separated or loose bodily parts.
- Lane · entry 19868
تَخَلَّعَ فِي الشَّرَابِ
To persist in drinking intoxicating beverage or become intoxicated.
The expression is explained through the resulting laxity or looseness of the joints.
- Lane · entry 19868
تَخَلَّعَ القَوْمُ
For a group to slip away, steal away, or depart secretly.
A figurative collective use describing unnoticed withdrawal.
- Lane · entry 19868
اِنْخَلَعَ
To become pulled off, removed from one’s place, or displaced.
The intransitive form describes an object becoming detached or displaced rather than someone actively removing it.
- Lane · entry 19870
مَخْلُوعُ الفُؤَادِ
To be frightened or terrified, as though the heart had been removed from its place.
The expression is figurative and can include fear accompanied by weakness, disturbing imaginings, or an apparent touch of insanity.
- Lane · entry 19870
- Lane · entry 19879
- Lane · entry 19883
- Lane · entry 19887
خَلْعٌ
Dislocation or displacement of a joint, limb, bone, arm, hand, leg, or foot without complete separation.
A technical bodily condition involving loss of normal placement rather than total detachment.
- Lane · entry 19872
- Lane · entry 19870
اِنْخَلَعَ مِنْ مَالِهِ
To become stripped or deprived of one’s property.
A figurative extension of being stripped of one’s possessions as a person is stripped of a garment.
- Lane · entry 19870
اِخْتَلَعُوهُ
To take or seize someone’s property.
A reported lexical use whose context is not further specified in the supplied passage.
- Lane · entry 19871
خَلْعٌ
Prepared preserved meat: meat stripped of its bones, seasoned, cooked or dried, and stored in a skin or other container.
The preparation may be made for travel and may include melted grease, seeds, salt, or vinegar according to the reported varieties.
- Lane · entry 19872
خُلْعَةٌ
Weakness, softness, or flabbiness in a person.
A general physical characterization, distinct from the specialized fear and hock-disease expressions.
- Lane · entry 19875
- Lane · entry 19885
- Lane · entry 19886
خِلْعَةٌ
A garment taken off, especially a robe bestowed as an honor-gift; by extension, a gift or free gift.
The noun may refer to the garment itself, whether already put on the recipient or not, and has a plural خِلَعٌ.
- Lane · entry 19876
خُلْعِيٌّ / خِلْعِيٌّ
A seller of cast-off or old garments, especially garments bestowed by kings.
The two vocalizations are reported with the same occupational meaning.
- Lane · entry 19877
- Lane · entry 19878
خَلِيعٌ
A cast-off, old, or worn-out garment.
A substantivized use of the passive sense of being removed or cast off.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A vicious, immoral, wicked, or mischievous person.
The term may describe someone notorious for dissolute conduct, drinking, or play; these are lexical extensions, not restrictions to one social category.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A gambler or player in a game of hazard for stakes.
The term can describe one who regularly engages in such games, including a player characterized in the sources by repeated loss or repeated success.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A hunter, fowler, or fisherman considered in his solitary state.
The designation is explained by the person’s being alone.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A demon, devil, or similar malevolent spirit.
A figurative application based on the being’s evil nature.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A wolf.
A lexical animal designation reported as a further figurative or specialized use.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلِيعٌ
A gaming arrow, especially one that does not win at first, though some authorities apply the term to one that wins at first.
The source records disagreement about which result defines the arrow; the disagreement does not erase the gaming-arrow sense.
- Lane · entry 19880
خَلَاعَةٌ
Vice, immorality, or vicious conduct.
A noun of conduct corresponding to the description of a person as خَلِيعٌ.
- Lane · entry 19881
خَلِعُ العِذَارِ
A beardless youth or young man whose beard has not yet grown.
A specialized lexical use reported separately from the figurative sense of throwing off restraint.
- Lane · entry 19883
خَالِعٌ
A kid.
The animal designation is reported as an apparent figurative association with playful behavior.
- Lane · entry 19883
رُطَبٌ خَالِعٌ
Dates that are fully ripe, soft, or ripe throughout, so that their skins strip off.
Also used of a date that has become wholly fit to eat.
- Lane · entry 19883
خَوْلَعٌ
A prepared food made from cooked or bruised colocynth, often combined with dates and flour or other ingredients.
A specialized culinary term for the preparation described in the lexical evidence.
- Lane · entry 19884
خَوْلَعٌ
Stupid or lacking sound judgment.
Applied to a person as an adjective.
- Lane · entry 19884
خَوْلَعٌ
A skilled guide.
A specialized occupational or personal description reported independently of the negative sense.
- Lane · entry 19884
مُخَلَّعٌ الأَلْيَتَيْنِ
A man whose buttocks are apart or separated.
A specific bodily description, distinct from the broader weak or flabby-person sense.
- Lane · entry 19886
مُخَلَّعٌ
A person showing loss of reason, insanity, or possession by a jinn.
A figurative or clinical characterization associated with a disturbance resembling removal of the faculties.
- Lane · entry 19886
مُخْتَلِعَةٌ
A woman affected by sexual desire or lust.
A specialized use reported separately from the marital-divorce sense of the same derived form.
- Lane · entry 19889
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The marital khulʿ sense is explicitly connected with Quranic discussion in the lexical evidence, but no modern verse location is assigned because the packet supplies no independently secure QAC occurrence for that construction.
The figurative readings of فَاخْلَعْ نَعْلَيْكَ are reported interpretations of the Quranic command and should not be confused with its directly attested physical-removal sense.