Quranic root
خوي
kh · w · y
The root centers on emptiness and falling: something becomes vacant, hollow, or deprived of what filled it, and can consequently collapse or lie fallen.
The lexical evidence develops from bodily or spatial emptying to vacant houses, hollow or fallen structures, separated spaces, and several specialized Classical usages. The extensions are not all productive or semantically uniform.
- Maqāyīs · row 1678
- Mufradāt · row 447
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- 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.
خَاوٍ
khāwin
- Part of speech
- Active participle
- Quran occurrences
- 5 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.
Empty, vacant, or hollow within; devoid of inhabitants or interior substance.
Used of houses, places, and structures or bodies described as lacking what filled them. The emphasis is on vacancy or interior hollowness rather than the separate event of collapse.
- Lane · entry 20372
Selected Quran examples
Quran 27:52word 3
“ruined”
Quran 69:7word 15
“hollow”
Fallen, collapsed, or lying in ruin.
Especially attested in the construction خاوية على عروشها, describing something fallen upon its roofs. In the description of palm trunks, the interpretation may include being uprooted, fallen, or fallen and hollow.
- Lane · entry 20372
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:259word 7
“(had) overturned”
Quran 18:42word 11
“collapsed”
Quran 22:45word 8
“fell”
Quran 27:52word 3
“ruined”
Quran 69:7word 15
“hollow”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:259خَاوِيَةٌ(had) overturned
- 18:42خَاوِيَةٌcollapsed
- 22:45خَاوِيَةٌfell
- 27:52خَاوِيَةًۢruined
- 69:7خَاوِيَةٍۢhollow
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 33 Classical meanings
خَوًى
Emptiness of the belly; hunger.
A state in which the belly is empty of food; the evidence also records hunger as a related usage.
- Lane · entry 20361
- Lane · entry 20365
خَوَتْ / خَوِيَتْ
For a woman, to become empty in the belly or abstain from food during childbirth.
A specialized childbirth-related usage explicitly applied to a woman.
- Lane · entry 20361
خَوَتِ النُّجُومُ
For stars to set or incline toward setting, especially without bringing rain.
The attested descriptions include ordinary setting and setting aurorally with no resulting rain.
- Lane · entry 20361
خَوَى الزَّنْدُ
For a fire-stick or ignition source to fail to produce fire.
A specialized expression concerning a zend that does not kindle.
- Lane · entry 20361
خَوَى
To call or cry out.
A separate verbal usage recorded without the vacancy sense.
- Lane · entry 20361
خَوَى
To pursue a direct course; transitively, to aim at, intend, or purpose something.
The evidence gives the basic sense as equivalent to قَصَدَ.
- Lane · entry 20361
خَوَاهُ
To seize, carry off by force, or snatch away.
A transitive usage describing forcible taking.
- Lane · entry 20361
خَوَّتِ الإِبِلُ
For camels to become empty and drawn up in their bellies.
A Form II usage specifically recorded of camels.
- Lane · entry 20362
خَوَّى فِي سُجُودِهِ
To prostrate with the belly raised from the ground and the upper arms held apart from the sides.
A prescribed bodily posture in prostration; the same spatial separation is compared with a camel's posture when lying on its breast.
- Lane · entry 20362
خَوَّى
To lower the eyes or look toward the ground, wishing to remain silent.
A conventional description of a person's downcast, silent posture.
- Lane · entry 20362
خَوَّى
For a bird to hang down or spread its wings and stretch out its legs in preparation for alighting.
The evidence describes the bird's posture while intending to land.
- Lane · entry 20362
خَوَّيْتُهَا
To dig a hollow for a woman, kindle a fire in it, and seat her there for a disease.
A specialized therapeutic procedure recorded with a woman as its object.
- Lane · entry 20362
خَوَّى لَهَا
To prepare the food called خَوِيَّة for a woman during childbirth.
A conventional childbirth-related food preparation.
- Lane · entry 20362
- Lane · entry 20371
أَخْوَى المَالُ
For cattle, camels, or similar livestock to attain the utmost degree of fatness.
A Form IV usage recorded of livestock.
- Lane · entry 20363
اِخْتَوَى
To abstain from food or become emptied of everything except anger.
A Form VIII usage combining abstention with an emotionally restricted state.
- Lane · entry 20364
اِخْتَوَى
To lose one's reason or intellect.
A distinct Form VIII psychological usage.
- Lane · entry 20364
اِخْتَوَى
To take away a thing altogether or take all that another possessed.
A transitive Form VIII usage of complete appropriation.
- Lane · entry 20364
اِخْتَوَى
For a beast of prey to steal and eat the young of a cow.
A specialized predatory usage.
- Lane · entry 20364
اِخْتَوَى
To cut off or appropriate a tract of land or district for oneself.
A Form VIII usage equivalent to اقتطع in the cited evidence.
- Lane · entry 20364
اِخْتَوَى
To thrust at a horse in the space between its fore and hind legs.
A specialized expression involving the horse's intervening bodily space.
- Lane · entry 20364
خَوًى / خَوِىٌّ
A low or depressed tract of land, especially a soft plain or valley.
The described tract may lie between mountains, sink into the earth, or extend widely in soft ground.
- Lane · entry 20365
- Lane · entry 20369
خَوًى
Continuing, subsisting, or lasting.
A dialectal usage attributed to the Tayyiʾ dialect.
- Lane · entry 20365
خَوًى
A flow of blood from the nose.
A specialized nominal usage for nasal bleeding.
- Lane · entry 20365
خَوَاةٌ
The space between the udder and the vulva in a she-camel or other cattle.
An anatomical term used of female livestock.
- Lane · entry 20366
خَوَاةٌ
A sound, especially a confused and continuous sound such as pouring rain or running horses.
The evidence also includes a sound one only imagines or fancies; these are sound-related usages rather than the anatomical term.
- Lane · entry 20366
خَوَاءٌ
An intervening or vacant space between two things, including the space between a horse's fore and hind legs or between heaven and earth.
The term denotes an open interval or gap, not necessarily a completely empty landscape.
- Lane · entry 20367
خَوَاءٌ
A wide, spacious open tract of earth without herbage, trees, or habitations.
A landscape term for a broad barren expanse.
- Lane · entry 20367
خُوَاءٌ
Honey.
A separate lexical item distinguished by its vocalization.
- Lane · entry 20368
خَوَايَةٌ
The part of the space between a horse's hind legs that it closes with its tail.
A specialized anatomical term concerning a horse's tail and hind-leg space.
- Lane · entry 20370
خَوَايَةٌ
The part of a spearhead into which the shaft enters.
A technical term for the socket of a spearhead.
- Lane · entry 20370
خَوَايَةٌ
The wide part of the interior of a camel saddle.
A technical term concerning the interior of a رحل.
- Lane · entry 20370
خَاوِيَةٌ
A calamity or misfortune.
A substantivized feminine form with a meaning distinct from the Quranic active-participle usage.
- Lane · entry 20373
مُخَوًّى
The place where a camel lies down in the posture associated with raising its belly from the ground.
A derived noun for the camel's designated lying place.
- Lane · entry 20375
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The supplied Quran form is morphologically feminine خاوية, while the public headword is normalized to the masculine active-participle citation form خَاوٍ.
In the Quranic construction خاوية على عروشها, vacancy and structural collapse are closely connected; the two senses distinguish the lexical aspects reflected in the translations.
The interpretations of the palm-trunk expression include being uprooted, eaten within, or fallen and empty; the supplied evidence does not require choosing only one of these readings.