Quranic root
يدي
y · d · y
The root is centered on the hand as a bodily organ and extends to what the hand represents: possession, power, effective agency, benefit, and personal action.
Quranic usage employs the concrete hand as well as established figurative and idiomatic extensions for control, strength, generosity, divine agency, responsibility, regret, and refusal.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 10
- Quran senses
- 120
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
يَد
yad
- Part of speech
- Noun
- Quran occurrences
- 120 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.
Hand; the bodily organ.
Used literally, including hands as instruments of touching, striking, writing, washing, or other action.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 5:11word 14
“their hands”
Possession, disposal, or authority held by someone.
Especially in the construction بيدِ, literally “in the hand of,” for something under a person's control or possession.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:237word 20
“in whose hands”
Strength, capacity, or effective power.
A figurative use of hand or hands for the ability to act.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 38:45word 7
“(of) strength”
Divine generosity and the bestowal of favor.
In imagery of an extended or unbound hand, contrasted with a bound hand denoting withholding.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 5:64word 3
“The Hand”
Divine power, support, favor, or authority.
In the covenant expression “the hand of God is above their hands.”
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 48:10word 7
“(The) Hand”
God's direct, exclusive creative agency.
In references to what God created or made “with Our hands” or “with My two hands”; the wording conveys His direct undertaking of creation without comparison to created bodily organs.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 36:71word 8
“Our hands”
A person's own doing or fabrication.
Attributing writing or an act to people's hands emphasizes that they themselves produced it.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 2:79word 5
“with their (own) hands”
Acknowledgment of a favor received, or of subordinated status.
In the phrase عن يد in the injunction concerning payment of jizyah; the supplied explanation records both interpretive construals.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 9:29word 27
“willingly”
Regret or remorse.
In the idiom سقط في أيديهم, literally “it fell into their hands.”
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 7:149word 4
“their hands”
Withdrawing from acceptance or refusing to respond.
In the idiom ردوا أيديهم في أفواههم, explained as holding back from accepting what they were commanded to accept.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Selected Quran examples
Quran 14:9word 22
“their hands”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 2:66يَدَيْهَا(of) them
- 2:79بِأَيْدِيهِمْwith their (own) hands
- 2:79أَيْدِيهِمْtheir hands
- 2:95أَيْدِيهِمْ ۗtheir hands
- 2:97يَدَيْهِbefore it
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 7 Classical meanings
يَدَيْتُهُ
I struck his hand.
A verbal use explicitly formed from the noun for hand.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
يَدَيْتُ إليه
To bestow a favor or benefit upon someone.
A verbal extension from hand as a favor or benefaction.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
يَدُ الدهر / يَدُ الشمال
The effective force or agency of time or of the wind.
A figurative attribution of a hand to an impersonal force because of its power.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
يَدُ فلان
A helper, supporter, ally, or patron.
In expressions such as أنا يدك and فلان يد فلان.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
وضع يده في
To begin or undertake something.
Literally, “to put one's hand into” an affair.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
نفض يده عن
To leave, relinquish, or withdraw from something.
Literally, “to shake one's hand off” something.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
يَدِيّ / يَدِيَّة
Skillful or industrious; a craftsman or craftswoman.
An adjectival or substantival derivative associated with skilled manual work.
- Mufradāt · row 1625
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The packet contains no directly matched Lane or Maqayis entry for this root; Quranic lexical senses here are supported by the supplied Mufradat entry.
Several dual forms of يَد are contextually translated “before” or “in front of.” The supplied lexical discussion does not explicitly analyze that construction as a separate Quranic sense.