أ خ ر (ʾ-kh-r): Every Word From This Root in the Quran

Quran Root Words > Root ʾ-kh-r

The Arabic root أ خ ر (ʾ-kh-r) occurs 250 times in the Quran, in 6 different words, and is number 37 of the Quran's 1,642 roots by frequency. The most frequent word is آخِر (ākhir), 155 times, followed by آخَر (ākhar), 70 times.

What the root ʾ-kh-r means

The Quranic Arabic Corpus glosses the root's form II verb أَخَّرَ (akhkhara) as "to delay, to give respite". Its other verbs are glossed there as follows: يَسْتَأْخِرُ (yastaʾkhiru), form X, "to delay, to postpone" and تَأَخَّرَ (taʾakhkhara), form V, "to delay, to stay behind". In the MASAQ word-by-word glosses, آخِر (ākhir) is most often rendered "the hereafter".

One letter of ʾ-kh-r is a hamza, the glottal stop. Arabic writes a hamza on a seat chosen by the vowels around it (أ, إ, ؤ, ئ, or ء on its own); in أَخَّرَ (akhkhara) it is written أ.

Every word from the root ʾ-kh-r in the Quran

The Quran builds 6 different words on ʾ-kh-r. The table lists them from most to least frequent, with the spelling the corpus gives each one, its word type, its meaning and its number of occurrences. Verbs account for 24 of the 250 occurrences, in forms II, V and X; the rest are nouns, adjectives and participles.

Meanings in quotation marks are MASAQ word-by-word glosses, the others the corpus dictionary's, and the word types follow the dictionary. Every count on this page is a lemma count from the Quranic Arabic Corpus, version 0.4. We compared each of these 6 counts, and the root total of 250, with the corpus's own dictionary entry for ʾ-kh-r, and all of them match.

The root ʾ-kh-r in the verses of the Quran

Words from ʾ-kh-r appear in 242 verses spread over 64 of the Quran's 114 suras. Sura 2 has the most of them, 21 verses. Below are the shortest verses in which the root's most frequent words occur, with the word marked. The text is the Uthmani text of Tanzil, and each reference opens the verse on quran.com with translations.

آخِر (ākhir), 155 times

دَعْوَىٰهُمْ فِيهَا سُبْحَٰنَكَ ٱللَّهُمَّ وَتَحِيَّتُهُمْ فِيهَا سَلَٰمٌ ۚ وَءَاخِرُ دَعْوَىٰهُمْ أَنِ ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Quran 10:10; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and the last"

وَقَالَت طَّآئِفَةٌ مِّنْ أَهْلِ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ ءَامِنُوا۟ بِٱلَّذِىٓ أُنزِلَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَجْهَ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَٱكْفُرُوٓا۟ ءَاخِرَهُۥ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
Quran 3:72; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "(at) its end"

قَالَ عِيسَى ٱبْنُ مَرْيَمَ ٱللَّهُمَّ رَبَّنَآ أَنزِلْ عَلَيْنَا مَآئِدَةً مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ تَكُونُ لَنَا عِيدًا لِّأَوَّلِنَا وَءَاخِرِنَا وَءَايَةً مِّنكَ ۖ وَٱرْزُقْنَا وَأَنتَ خَيْرُ ٱلرَّٰزِقِينَ
Quran 5:114; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and last of us"

آخَر (ākhar), 70 times

وَءَاخَرُ مِن شَكْلِهِۦٓ أَزْوَٰجٌ
Quran 38:58; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and other"

وَلَقَدْ رَءَاهُ نَزْلَةً أُخْرَىٰ
Quran 53:13; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "another"

أَخَّرَ (akhkhara), 15 times

عَلِمَتْ نَفْسٌ مَّا قَدَّمَتْ وَأَخَّرَتْ
Quran 82:5; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and left behind"

وَمَا نُؤَخِّرُهُۥٓ إِلَّا لِأَجَلٍ مَّعْدُودٍ
Quran 11:104; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "we delay it"

Names of God from the root ʾ-kh-r

2 of the 99 names of God in the enumeration of at-Tirmidhi are built on ʾ-kh-r. Our table of the 99 names of Allah with their roots lists all of them, each with an everyday word from the same root.

• 72. الْمُؤَخِّرُ Al-Muʾakhkhir, The One who delays
• 74. الْآخِرُ Al-Akhir, The Last

Learning the words of ʾ-kh-r

آخِر (ākhir), no. 70 with 155, is on our list of the 100 most common Quran words, which counts it the same way. Its verbs follow the patterns of the Arabic verb forms (forms II, V and X), and our Arabic verb conjugator conjugates any root in any form, so you can see how أَخَّرَ changes for person and tense. The root ʾ-kh-r is one of the 1,642 roots you can search in our Quran root word explorer; for the rest of the language, see our Arabic learning resources by level.

Frequently asked questions

Keep learning Arabic

• Up one levelQuran Root Word Explorer: Every Root, Word and VerseFind the root of any Quran word: type Arabic letters, a word or a transliteration and see every derived word, its count and its verses. All 1,642 roots.
• In this topicأ ل ه (ʾ-l-h): Every Word From This Root in the QuranThe root أ ل ه (ʾ-l-h) occurs 2,851 times in the Quran, in 3 words led by Allāh. Each word with its count and type, plus the shortest verses it is in.
• In this topicأ م ن (ʾ-m-n): Every Word From This Root in the QuranThe root أ م ن (ʾ-m-n) occurs 879 times in the Quran, in 17 words led by āmana. Each word with its count and type, plus the shortest verses it is in.
• Also on OpenArabicNoor in Arabic: How to Write نور, and What It MeansNoor in Arabic is نور (Nūr), an Arabic name that means light. Copy it with or without vowels, hear it, and save it in three calligraphy styles.