Quranic root
زمل
z · m · l
The root has two principal semantic orientations: bearing or carrying a burden, and sound. Its carrying branch includes loads, pack animals, riding companions, and related figurative descriptions; its sound branch includes animal and bow sounds.
The carrying orientation extends to the pack animal and to sharing or balancing a load, while weakness may be figured as becoming burden-like. The sound orientation remains a separate branch. Wrapping and being wrapped are directly attested in derived formations and in the Quranic form, but are not treated as the sole root principle.
- Maqāyīs · row 2295
- Lane · entry 31586
- Lane · entry 31611
- 1
- Quran-attested forms
- 2
- Quran senses
- 1
- Quran occurrences
Forms in the Quran
The forms this root actually takes in the Quran. Select one to jump to its senses and examples.
مُزَّمِّلٌ
muzzammilun
- Part of speech
- 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.
One wrapped in his garment or garments.
An active participial epithet for a person who has wrapped himself in clothing; the Quranic occurrence is in 73:1.
- Lane · entry 31589
- Lane · entry 31619
Selected Quran examples
Quran 73:1word 2
“who wraps himself”
By allusion, one wrapped up and remiss or slow to attend to the task before him.
A Quran-focused interpretation of 73:1 treats the physical wrapping metaphorically, as a kenning for inattention or reluctance rather than merely describing clothing.
- Mufradāt · row 630
Selected Quran examples
Quran 73:1word 2
“who wraps himself”
Occurrences in the Quran
Every place this root appears, in Quran order. The first few are shown here.
- 73:1ٱلْمُزَّمِّلُwho wraps himself
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 32 Classical meanings
زَمَلَ
To run or go quickly with an appearance of limping or leaning to one side.
Described of people and animals, including horses and wild asses; the apparent limp may be associated with briskness, pride, or self-conceit.
- Lane · entry 31586
- Lane · entry 31599
- Lane · entry 31608
- Lane · entry 31616
زَمَلَ
To bear or carry a thing or load, taking it up or raising it onto the back.
The ordinary transitive carrying construction; the carried object may be a load.
- Lane · entry 31586
زَمَلَهُ
To make someone ride behind him, or to ride with him so as to counterbalance him.
Especially a shared ride on a camel or in a howdah.
- Lane · entry 31586
زَمَلَ غَيْرَهُ
To follow another.
A transitive following construction, also reflected in the associated noun for a companion or follower.
- Lane · entry 31586
- Lane · entry 31608
زَمَّلَهُ
To wrap someone in a garment or garments.
Form II transitive usage, with the clothing expressed by a preposition or by a phrase meaning in his garments.
- Lane · entry 31587
تَزْمِيلٌ
Concealment or the act of hiding.
An extension explicitly derived from wrapping.
- Lane · entry 31587
مُزَامَلَةٌ
The requiting of beneficence.
A conventional Form III noun distinct from the riding and balancing sense.
- Lane · entry 31588
تَزَامَلُوا
To recite or chant rajaz verse with one another, or to vie in doing so.
The term زَمَل is used for the metre or verse type also called rajaz.
- Lane · entry 31590
زَوْمَلَ
To drive camels.
A specialized Form Q.Q usage.
- Lane · entry 31592
زِمْلٌ
A load or burden; figuratively, a burden of knowledge.
The knowledge sense is reported as a figurative use of the ordinary burden meaning.
- Lane · entry 31593
زِمْلٌ
Household goods, furniture, or utensils.
A nominal use referring to household belongings.
- Lane · entry 31593
زِمْلٌ
A half.
Attested in the idiom مَا فِي جُوَالِكَ إِلَّا زِمْلٌ, ‘there is only a half in your sack’; the evidence does not establish a broader unrestricted sense.
- Lane · entry 31593
زَمَلٌ
A kind of verse or poetry, especially rajaz.
The term may be contrasted with or confused with رَمَل in a reported variant reading, while both are said to agree in meaning in the cited verse.
- Lane · entry 31594
زُمْلَةٌ
A company or group of persons travelling together, or a collection in general.
The travel-companion sense is especially associated with people journeying together; some authorities extend it to any company or collection.
- Lane · entry 31596
زِمْلَةٌ
A dense or abundant growth or cluster, especially of palms or young palm shoots.
Applied to luxuriant dense palms, a collection of young shoots, or young palms exceeding the reach of the hand.
- Lane · entry 31597
زِمَالٌ
A wrapper placed over a leather water-skin or water-bag.
The plural is also reported in forms referring to several such wrappers.
- Lane · entry 31599
زَمِيلٌ
A riding or travelling companion, especially one who rides behind another or shares a mount or howdah.
The word extends to a companion who assists another in his affairs and to two people working together with their camels; it can also be used figuratively for an assistant in an intellectual undertaking.
- Lane · entry 31600
زُمَّلٌ
A cowardly, weak, low, mean, or contemptible person who withdraws into his house or tent instead of rising to difficult action.
The description includes indolent refraining from warfare or from aspiring to great things; this Classical specialization is kept separate from the Quranic participle.
- Lane · entry 31603
زَامِلَةٌ
A camel or other beast used to carry a traveller’s goods, household belongings, and provisions.
Usually a she-camel or other pack animal; the plural is زَوَامِلُ.
- Lane · entry 31609
زَامِلَةٌ
A half-load containing a pilgrim’s travelling provisions.
A later specialized use for the portion of a load containing dry bread, dates, and similar provisions.
- Lane · entry 31609
زَوْمَلَةٌ
Camels bearing their loads.
A collective or plural-like use for loaded camels or a laden caravan.
- Lane · entry 31610
ابْنُ زَوْمَلَتِهَا
A knower of an affair.
Restricted to the reported idiomatic expression هو ابن زوملتها, referring to someone thoroughly acquainted with the matter.
- Lane · entry 31610
ابْنُ زَوْمَلَةَ
The son of a female slave.
A separate reported idiom, not a general meaning of زَوْمَلَةٌ.
- Lane · entry 31610
أَزْمَلٌ
A sound or noise, including a mixed or confused sound, the sound of a horse’s prepuce, or the twanging of a bow.
The bow sense is attested in the plural expression أَزَامِيلُ القِسِيِّ; the listed applications are varieties of the sound branch.
- Lane · entry 31611
أَزْمَلٌ
A family or household together with its cattle or other property; by extension, numerous families or households.
Used in expressions for leaving one’s family behind or setting out with one’s whole household and livestock.
- Lane · entry 31611
أَخَذَهُ بِأَزْمَلِهِ
To take a thing altogether, including its furniture or utensils.
A fixed expression emphasizing the taking of the whole of something and its associated belongings.
- Lane · entry 31611
إِزْمِيلٌ
A shoemaker’s knife used to cut leather.
A specialized implement sense.
- Lane · entry 31615
إِزْمِيلٌ
A crescent-shaped iron attached to the end of a spear for catching wild oxen.
A separate hunting implement sense.
- Lane · entry 31615
إِزْمِيلٌ
The implement called مِطْرَقَة, a mallet or hammering tool.
A technical implement sense reported under the same headword as the shoemaker’s knife.
- Lane · entry 31615
إِزْمِيلٌ
Figuratively of a man, a great or vehement eater or a strong man; also, contrariwise, a weak, low, or contemptible man.
The evidence explicitly preserves opposite evaluations under this figurative application rather than resolving them into one value.
- Lane · entry 31615
أُزْمُولَةٌ
A vociferous animal, especially a mountain goat.
The form and its reported variant إِزْمَوْلٌ may be applied to a mountain goat or another animal making a loud noise.
- Lane · entry 31616
مُزَمَّلَةٌ
A wrapped vessel used for cooling and dispensing water.
A specialized Iraqi vessel, traditionally wrapped with cloth and straw so that the water remains cool.
- Lane · entry 31617
Cautions
Points that affect how this root should be read.
The public headword is normalized to the indefinite active-participle citation form مُزَّمِّلٌ, while the supplied Quran occurrence is definite and inflected.
The figurative implication of remissness in the second Quranic sense is an interpretive reading of the physical wrapping; the supplied discussion also records a gentling or mollifying interpretation.
Some Classical entries preserve expressly contrary evaluations, such as strong or voracious versus weak or contemptible; these have been retained rather than harmonized.