Quranic root
خلو
kh · l · w
The root denotes the removal or absence of one thing from another, leaving it bare, vacant, free, or unoccupied.
From physical emptiness and freedom from occupation, the meanings extend to passing away, being alone or privately separated, leaving something free, and related states of release or detachment.
- Maqāyīs · row 1639
- Mufradāt · row 427
- 4
- Quran-attested forms
- 6
- Quran senses
- 28
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
خَلَا
khalā
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form I
- Form
- I
- Quran occurrences
- 25 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 pass away, go by, or be gone.
Used of earlier people, generations, events, or periods; the Quran also uses the form for what has gone before or passed out of the present situation.
- Lane · entry 19971
- Mufradāt · row 427
Selected Quran examples
Quran 35:24word 10
“had passed”
To be alone with someone; to meet or converse in private.
Occurs with a person or group as the companion, including the Quranic construction خَلَوْا إِلَىٰ شَيَاطِينِهِمْ, “they were alone with their devils.”
- Lane · entry 19971
- Mufradāt · row 427
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:14word 8
“they are alone”
To become available exclusively to someone; to be free for that person.
With لِـ, as in يَخْلُ لَكُمْ وَجْهُ أَبِيكُمْ, the construction expresses that a person or thing becomes exclusively available, bringing the relevant attention or favor to the beneficiary.
- Lane · entry 19971
- Mufradāt · row 427
Selected Quran examples
Quran 12:9word 6
“so will be free”
خَلَّى
khallā
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form II
- Form
- II
- 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 release, let go, or leave free.
A transitive causative use; in فَخَلُّوا سَبِيلَهُمْ it means to leave their way free, hence to release them.
- Lane · entry 19972
- Mufradāt · row 427
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:5word 21
“then leave”
تَخَلَّى
takhallā
- Part of speech
- Verb · Form V
- Form
- V
- 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 become vacant or empty; to be left free of what occupied it.
An intransitive/reflexive use describing the subject as becoming cleared or emptied; the Quranic occurrence describes becoming empty.
- Lane · entry 19975
- Mufradāt · row 427
Selected Quran examples
Quran 84:4word 4
“and becomes empty”
خَالٍ
khālin
- Part of speech
- Adjective · 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.
Past; gone by.
Used adjectivally of times or generations that have already passed, as in الْأَيَّامِ الْخَالِيَةِ, “past days.”
- Lane · entry 19984
- Mufradāt · row 427
Selected Quran examples
Quran 69:24word 8
“past”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:14خَلَوْا۟they are alone
- 2:76خَلَاmeet in private
- 2:134خَلَتْ ۖhas passed away
- 2:141خَلَتْ ۖhas passed away
- 2:214خَلَوْا۟passed away
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 38 Classical meanings
خَلَا
To be or become empty, vacant, void, or devoid of occupants or contents.
Used of a place, dwelling, vessel, thing, or the contents of the belly; this is a broader Classical use than the Quranic Form I senses listed above.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا
To be or become free from a fault, affair, or other thing.
Used with مِنْ or عَنْ, and also absolutely in the sense of being clear or free from an alleged fault or burden.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا
For a woman, to be free from an obstacle to marriage.
A specific construction with عَنْ describing freedom from a legal or marital impediment.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا بِهِ
To be alone with another in private seclusion.
In a marital legal context, خَلْوَة may denote private seclusion with a spouse and has specified legal consequences before consummation; this technical qualification is Classical Arabic usage.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا
To devote oneself exclusively to religious service or exercises.
The seclusion or withdrawal is understood as allowing the person to concentrate on worship.
- Lane · entry 19971
- Lane · entry 19975
- Lane · entry 19989
خَلَا بِهِ
To mock, ridicule, deride, or deceive someone.
A reported figurative use of the private-occupation construction; the sources describe both ridicule and the related sense of attempting to deceive or outwit.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا عَلَيْهِ
To rely on or depend upon someone.
A specialized construction interpreted as betaking oneself to that person alone.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا
To eat what is good, sweet, or pleasant.
A rare lexical use reported separately in the entry; it is not treated as a Quranic meaning.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَا
To confine oneself exclusively to an affair, a portion of food, or a selected she-camel.
Used of being alone in an affair or activity, restricting oneself to selected food, or confining oneself to a selected she-camel; this Form I exclusive-use construction is distinct from merely meeting someone in private.
- Lane · entry 19971
خَلَّى
To leave a place empty or vacant, or to make it so.
Includes the idiomatic association of leaving one’s place vacant with dying; this causative emptying use is distinct from the Quranic command to release or leave free.
- Lane · entry 19972
خَلَّى
To go one’s way, withdraw, or leave something or someone alone.
Used of withdrawing from a person, affair, or place, and of leaving others free to act.
- Lane · entry 19972
خَالَى
To leave, forsake, abandon, or part from someone; to become distant from him.
The Form III construction is transitive with a person as its object and may emphasize separation or desertion.
- Lane · entry 19973
خَالَى
To go out to someone in the field and confront him directly.
A specialized use in which the parties meet in the open for direct engagement.
- Lane · entry 19973
خَالَى
To wrestle or contend directly with another person.
The contest is undertaken one-on-one, without seeking assistance from others; the use may extend to contention in an affair or in war.
- Lane · entry 19973
- Lane · entry 19988
أَخْلَى
To make a place empty, or to find it empty.
Used transitively of a place of dwelling or alighting; the two possibilities are respectively causing and discovering its vacancy.
- Lane · entry 19974
أَخْلَى
To make or find someone alone with oneself.
A construction with a person as object and the speaker or another person as companion.
- Lane · entry 19974
تَخَلَّى
To go into an open or vacant tract to relieve oneself.
A bodily-function euphemism associated with going out into an unoccupied place.
- Lane · entry 19975
تَخَلَّى
To become vacant from occupation or business, or to confine oneself exclusively to an activity or object.
Includes being at leisure, devoting oneself to an affair, and restricting one’s attention or consumption to selected food or a selected camel.
- Lane · entry 19975
تَخَلَّى
For camels, to be left to themselves without a herder.
A specialized use describing animals left free to pasture without supervision.
- Lane · entry 19975
اِسْتَخْلَى
To ask someone to leave his sitting-place vacant for the requester.
A request for the other person to vacate a particular seat or place.
- Lane · entry 19976
اِسْتَخْلَى
To ask for a private meeting or interview.
Used when asking a king or another person to meet in a place unoccupied by others.
- Lane · entry 19976
خَلْوَةٌ
Solitude, loneliness, or private seclusion.
A substantive denoting the state of being apart from others; it may also describe ease or privacy in conference.
- Lane · entry 19979
خَلْوَةٌ
An empty or unoccupied place, especially a private room or place of retreat.
The word can denote the place in which a private meeting or retirement occurs.
- Lane · entry 19979
خَلْوَةٌ
Either of the two sharp sides or edges of an arrowhead or spearhead.
The two edges together are called الخَلْوَتَانِ.
- Lane · entry 19979
خَلَاءٌ
A vacant place, open tract, or place containing nothing; specifically, a place used for relieving oneself.
The substantive may denote an open or deserted area and, in a more specific use, a privy or place of bodily relief.
- Lane · entry 19980
حُلْوُ الخَلَاءِ
Good or pleasant in speech.
Reported in a phrase whose reading and assignment to this root are uncertain; the meaning is retained as a tentative Classical lexical item.
- Lane · entry 19980
خَلِيٌّ / خَلِيَّةٌ
A she-camel released from restraint and left free to pasture.
The feminine form is applied especially to a she-camel loosed from a binding of the forelimb and allowed to range freely.
- Lane · entry 19981
خَلِيَّةٌ
A divorced woman, or a woman free from a husband or an obstacle to marriage.
The marital sense is a metonymic extension of being left free; the word may be used as a divorce formula.
- Lane · entry 19971
- Lane · entry 19981
خَلِيَّةٌ
A she-camel selected or left for exclusive milking, including one made to accept and nourish another camel’s young.
A technical pastoral term covering several arrangements in which a camel is confined to the milking of the household or is made to yield milk through another young camel.
- Lane · entry 19981
خَلِيَّةٌ
A large ship, especially one that goes by itself or is accompanied by a small boat.
A substantivized use distinct from the feminine adjective and camel term.
- Lane · entry 19982
خَلِيَّةٌ
A habitation or hive of bees in which honey is deposited.
May denote a manufactured hive, a hollow in wood or rock, or another container used by bees for honey.
- Lane · entry 19982
خَالٍ
Empty, vacant, void, devoid, or unoccupied.
Applied to a place, thing, or vessel that contains no occupants or contents.
- Lane · entry 19984
خَالٍ
Free, clear, or quit of a thing, person, affair, or anxiety.
Used with مِنْ or عَنْ and may describe freedom from worry, liability, an affliction, or another matter.
- Lane · entry 19984
خَالٍ
Without a wife; of a woman, without a husband, and in some uses without husband or children.
An adjectival social-status use, with feminine and plural forms reported in the lexical evidence.
- Lane · entry 19984
خَالٍ
Alone or by oneself.
A contextual adjectival use of being in a vacant place or without companions.
- Lane · entry 19984
مُخْلٍ
Destitute of or lacking something, including additional wives in the reported idiom.
The cited phrase explicitly concerns not finding a man without wives besides the speaker; it is not simply the feminine marital-status adjective خَلِيَّةٌ.
- Lane · entry 19985
مِخْلَاءٌ
A she-camel left alone and separated from her young one.
A specialized pastoral noun.
- Lane · entry 19986
مُخَلًّى
Left free, permitted, or allowed.
The passive participle of Form II; it describes someone or something released from restraint or permission being granted.
- Lane · entry 19987
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The phrase حُلْوُ الخَلَاءِ is retained as a tentative Classical item because the source reports uncertainty about its reading and whether it belongs to this root.