Quranic root
خور
kh · w · r
The root has two principal lexical axes: emitted sound, especially animal lowing, and weakness or softness.
The sound axis extends from animal cries to other noises and to reciprocal, causative, and eliciting constructions. The weakness axis extends to feebleness, fragility, yieldingness, and the abatement of heat or cold; these are parallel lexical branches rather than one universal meaning.
- Maqāyīs · row 1667
- Lane · entry 20252
- Lane · entry 20254
- Lane · entry 20255
- Lane · entry 20256
- Lane · entry 20264
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 1
- Quran senses
- 2
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
خُوَار
khuwār
- Part of speech
- Verbal noun
- 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.
A lowing or bellowing sound, especially the cry of cattle.
In the Quran, used in the construction لَهُ خُوَارٌ, describing the sound of the calf. The same lexical sound-branch can also be applied in Classical Arabic to the cries of other beasts.
- Lane · entry 20252
- Mufradāt · row 442
Selected Quran examples
Quran 7:148word 11
“(had) a lowing sound”
Quran 20:88word 6
“a lowing sound”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
View all 2 occurrencesBroader 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
خَارَ
To make the whizzing or sounding of arrows.
A sound use distinct from animal lowing.
- Lane · entry 20252
خَارَ عَلَيْهِ
To bend, turn, or incline toward someone.
A directed construction describing movement or inclination toward another.
- Lane · entry 20252
خَارَ، خَوِرَ
To be weak, feeble, languid, soft, or fragile.
Applied to a person or to a thing; the lexical descriptions include reed-like softness and fragility.
- Lane · entry 20252
خَوَرٌ
In a camel, either commendable endurance of thirst and fatigue or blameworthy inability to endure them.
The evaluation depends on context: the term can denote either a praised or a dispraised quality.
- Lane · entry 20252
خَارَ
Of heat or cold, to become faint, remit, abate, or cease.
The construction خار عَنَّا is used of cold that has left or ceased from someone.
- Lane · entry 20252
خَارَهُ
To strike or hurt the خَوْرَان by thrusting or piercing it with a spear or similar weapon.
A specialized transitive construction referring to the anatomical خَوْرَان.
- Lane · entry 20252
خَوَّرَهُ
To attribute weakness, feebleness, or languor to someone.
A Form II causative or ascriptive construction.
- Lane · entry 20253
أَخَارَهُ
To cause someone or something to utter a cry.
A Form IV causative use, reported as the primary sense of the derived verb.
- Lane · entry 20254
أَخَارَهُ
To cause someone or something to bend, turn, or incline.
A derived transitive use, including turning riding camels toward a destination.
- Lane · entry 20254
تَخَاوَرَتِ الثِّيرَانُ
For bulls to low or bellow to one another.
A reciprocal Form VI construction.
- Lane · entry 20255
اِسْتَخَارَهَا
To try to make a gazelle or wild cow utter its cry, or to imitate its cry so that it will respond.
A hunting technique in which the sportsman imitates the young animal's cry to draw out the mother.
- Lane · entry 20256
اِسْتَخَارَهُ
To endeavor to make someone bend, turn, or incline.
A Form X effort-directed construction.
- Lane · entry 20256
اِسْتَخَارَهُ
To call or summon someone to oneself.
A derived construction involving a call that draws the addressed party toward the speaker.
- Lane · entry 20256
اِسْتَخَارَهُ
To question someone or something in order to elicit a reply or speech.
Used of interrogating a person and, poetically, of asking dwelling traces to respond.
- Lane · entry 20256
اِسْتَخَارَ الضَّبَّ
To drive a lizard or jerboa from its burrow by placing a stick in one passage so that it emerges through another.
A specialized hunting method involving the passages of a burrow.
- Lane · entry 20256
خَوْرٌ
Low or depressed ground between elevated parts; an inlet, channel, or watercourse leading from a sea or large river.
The term covers a depression or channel through which water enters or pours toward a sea or large river.
- Lane · entry 20257
خُورَةُ الإِبِلِ
The best or choicest of camels.
A specialized nominal use applied to a camel or to camels collectively.
- Lane · entry 20259
خَوْرَانٌ
The rectal passage, anus, or anatomical cleft containing the anus; in some descriptions, the cleft containing the female external genital opening.
The term has several closely related anatomical applications, including the rectum, its opening, and the surrounding cleft.
- Lane · entry 20261
خَوَّارٌ
Weak, feeble, or cowardly; a person unable to endure hardship or distress.
Most directly applied to a person, with cowardice given as a figurative extension of weakness.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارٌ
Weak, soft, or fragile, applied to things such as a spear, arrow, reed, or ground; also used of beds stuffed with soft material.
The term describes lack of hardness or firmness and related softness in objects or materials.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارٌ، خَوَّارَةٌ
Of a camel, slender and beautiful; of a she-camel, soft-fleshed and fragile-boned.
A specialized descriptive application to camels and she-camels.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارُ العِنَانِ
A horse that turns easily and runs much.
An idiomatic description of a responsive, easily turning horse.
- Lane · entry 20264
بَكْرَةٌ خَوَّارَةٌ
A pulley sheave whose pin turns easily in its supports.
A specialized technical description of easy rotation.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارَةٌ
A female camel, ewe, or she-goat whose milk is abundant or flows readily.
Some descriptions additionally characterize the female camel as thin-skinned; the core usage concerns plentiful or freely flowing milk.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارَةٌ
A palm tree that bears much fruit.
A specialized botanical application.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارُ الصَّفَا
Smooth stones that sound when struck because of their hardness.
An expression for resonant, hard smooth stones.
- Lane · entry 20264
زَنْدٌ خَوَّارٌ
A firestick that emits abundant fire.
Equivalent in the cited usage to a highly fire-producing implement.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارُ العُودِ
Lavish or freely giving when asked.
An idiomatic expression used in dispraise of excessive generosity.
- Lane · entry 20264
خَوَّارٌ
A plural designation for women regarded as corrupt and lacking forbearance.
Reported as a plural expression without a singular form.
- Lane · entry 20264
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The modern Quran locations shown in the examples are supplied QAC locations; historical lexicographic Quran citations are not treated as modern surah:ayah coordinates.
Several Lane entries redirect forms to other entries or explicitly associate them with the root خير; those pointer-only units are not counted as independent meanings of خور.