Quranic root
خزن
kh · z · n
The root denotes safeguarding or preserving something by putting it away, especially in storage.
The central sense develops from storing property to preserving secrets, guarding entrusted things, and figuratively withholding. The meat-stinking branch is treated in the lexical evidence as a transposed formation rather than part of this central root principle.
- Maqāyīs · row 1574
- Mufradāt · row 403
- 2
- Quran-attested forms
- 4
- Quran senses
- 13
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
خَازِنٌ
khāzinun
- Part of speech
- Agent noun / 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.
A keeper, guardian, or person entrusted with storing and protecting something.
Includes the keepers or guardians of Paradise and Hell; the Quranic plural forms include خَزَنَةٌ and خَازِنِينَ.
- Lane · entry 19039
Selected Quran examples
Quran 39:71word 14
“its keepers”
Quran 40:49word 5
“to (the) keepers”
To retain something with grateful acknowledgment, or to keep it in mind with thankfulness.
An explicitly reported interpretation of مَا أَنْتُمْ لَهُ بِخَازِنِينَ in the passage concerning divinely supplied water; it is a construction-specific use rather than the ordinary sense of a custodian.
- Lane · entry 19039
- Mufradāt · row 403
Selected Quran examples
Quran 15:22word 12
“(are) retainers”
خَزِينَةٌ
khazīnahun
- Part of speech
- Noun · plural form خَزَائِنُ
- Quran occurrences
- 8 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 store of wealth or resources; a treasure, treasury, or repository of things kept in reserve.
The Quranic plural خَزَائِنُ can denote stored resources or treasuries, including material stores and what is held in reserve.
- Lane · entry 19036
- Lane · entry 19037
- Mufradāt · row 403
Selected Quran examples
Quran 12:55word 4
“(the) treasuries”
In divine possessive expressions, God's inaccessible reserves: hidden things, decreed events, creative capacity, or the means of sustenance supplied by Him.
Used in expressions such as خَزَائِنُ اللَّهِ and خَزَائِنُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ; the listed lexical explanations include divine power, what is withheld from people, decreed events, and provisions.
- Lane · entry 19037
- Mufradāt · row 403
Selected Quran examples
Quran 11:31word 5
“(are the) treasures”
Quran 15:21word 6
“(are) its treasures”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 6:50خَزَآئِنُ(are the) treasures
- 11:31خَزَآئِنُ(are the) treasures
- 12:55خَزَآئِنِ(the) treasuries
- 15:21خَزَآئِنُهُۥ(are) its treasures
- 15:22بِخَـٰزِنِينَ(are) retainers
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 13 Classical meanings
خَزَنَ
To store, lay up, preserve, or guard something in a repository.
May take a thing or property as its object; the lexical entry also records a related self-directed form meaning to do this for oneself.
- Lane · entry 19030
خَزَنَ
To conceal a secret.
A figurative extension of keeping something stored or protected from disclosure.
- Lane · entry 19030
خَزَنَ عَنْهُ
To withhold a gift or provision from someone.
Occurs in the construction خَزَنَ عَنْهُ عَطَاءَهُ.
- Lane · entry 19030
خَزِنَ
Of flesh-meat, to become altered in odor or stinking; the related adjective خَزِينٌ is likewise used of stinking meat.
The evidence also reports an explanation linking the odor change to meat being laid up or stored, and treats the branch as related to a transposed formation from خَنِزَ.
- Lane · entry 19030
- Lane · entry 19035
- Maqāyīs · row 1574
أَخْزَنَ
To become rich, competent, or sufficient after poverty.
A Form IV intransitive development describing a change into a state of material sufficiency.
- Lane · entry 19031
اِخْتَزَنَ، مَخَازِنُ الطَّرِيقِ
To take or use the nearest road or way.
Restricted to the reported road expressions اِخْتَزَنَ طَرِيقًا and مَخَازِنُ الطَّرِيقِ.
- Lane · entry 19032
- Lane · entry 19040
خَزِينٌ
A thing or property stored, laid up, kept, preserved, or guarded in a repository.
Names the stored object or property rather than the act of storing it.
- Lane · entry 19035
خِزَانَةٌ
A chamber, closet, storehouse, or repository in which things are kept or guarded.
May refer to a small chamber within a larger one and, by extension, a magazine, storeroom, library, bookcase, or armoury.
- Lane · entry 19036
خِزَانَةٌ
The heart, as the place where a secret is concealed.
A figurative use based on treating the heart as a repository of hidden matters.
- Lane · entry 19036
خِزَانَةٌ
The occupation and act of a keeper or treasurer.
A verbal-noun sense referring to the work of guarding or administering stored property.
- Lane · entry 19036
خَزَّانٌ
One who stores wheat or food.
A specialized occupational designation reported in the dialect of Egypt.
- Lane · entry 19038
خَزَّانٌ
Ripe dates that become black inside because of a harmful condition.
A substantivized noun with a singular feminine form in the source discussion.
- Lane · entry 19038
خَازِنٌ
The tongue, figuratively, as the keeper of a secret.
A figurative use in which the tongue is described as guarding what is entrusted to it.
- Lane · entry 19039
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The Quranic plural خَزَائِنُ is shared in the lexical evidence by خَزِينَةٌ, a stored treasure or wealth, and خِزَانَةٌ, a repository or storehouse; the public headword is normalized to خَزِينَةٌ while the repository branch remains separately documented.
The grateful-retention interpretation of 15:22 is explicitly reported as one interpretation, alongside an explanation concerning human inability to control or possess the water.
The meat-stinking branch is lexically reported as a transposed formation related to خَنِزَ rather than as the central preservation sense of خزن.