ر ب ب (r-b-b): Every Word From This Root in the Quran

Quran Root Words > Root r-b-b

The Arabic root ر ب ب (r-b-b) occurs 980 times in the Quran, in 4 different words, and is number 4 of the Quran's 1,642 roots by frequency. The most frequent word is رَبّ (rabb), 975 times, followed by رَبَّٰنِيِّن (rabbāniyyin), 3 times.

What the root r-b-b means

The corpus dictionary gives no gloss for this root's words, so the meaning here comes from the word-by-word glosses of the MASAQ dataset, which most often render رَبّ (rabb) as "lord".

The second and third letters of r-b-b are the same letter, ب. In many words the two are written as one letter with a shadda, the mark that doubles a consonant, as in رَبّ (rabb).

Every word from the root r-b-b in the Quran

The Quran builds 4 different words on r-b-b. 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. The Quran uses no verb from r-b-b: all 980 occurrences are nouns, adjectives or participles.

Meanings in quotation marks are MASAQ word-by-word glosses, the others the corpus dictionary's, and the word types follow the dictionary. The Arabic is the corpus's, in the Quran's own spelling, so رَبَّٰنِيِّن (rabbāniyyin) keeps its small dagger alif. Every count on this page is a lemma count from the Quranic Arabic Corpus, version 0.4, and the root total of 980 matches the corpus's own dictionary entry for r-b-b.

The root r-b-b in the verses of the Quran

Words from r-b-b appear in 871 verses spread over 94 of the Quran's 114 suras. Sura 7 has the most of them, 55 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.

رَبّ (rabb), 975 times

وَرَبَّكَ فَكَبِّرْ
Quran 74:3; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and your lord"

وَلِرَبِّكَ فَٱصْبِرْ
Quran 74:7; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and for your lord"

رَبِّ مُوسَىٰ وَهَٰرُونَ
Quran 7:122; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "lord"

رَبَّٰنِيِّن (rabbāniyyin), 3 times

لَوْلَا يَنْهَىٰهُمُ ٱلرَّبَّٰنِيُّونَ وَٱلْأَحْبَارُ عَن قَوْلِهِمُ ٱلْإِثْمَ وَأَكْلِهِمُ ٱلسُّحْتَ ۚ لَبِئْسَ مَا كَانُوا۟ يَصْنَعُونَ
Quran 5:63; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "the rabbis"

مَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَن يُؤْتِيَهُ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْكِتَٰبَ وَٱلْحُكْمَ وَٱلنُّبُوَّةَ ثُمَّ يَقُولَ لِلنَّاسِ كُونُوا۟ عِبَادًا لِّى مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَٰكِن كُونُوا۟ رَبَّٰنِيِّـۧنَ بِمَا كُنتُمْ تُعَلِّمُونَ ٱلْكِتَٰبَ وَبِمَا كُنتُمْ تَدْرُسُونَ
Quran 3:79; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "worshippers of the lord"

رَبَٰٓئِب (rabāʾib), once

حُرِّمَتْ عَلَيْكُمْ أُمَّهَٰتُكُمْ وَبَنَاتُكُمْ وَأَخَوَٰتُكُمْ وَعَمَّٰتُكُمْ وَخَٰلَٰتُكُمْ وَبَنَاتُ ٱلْأَخِ وَبَنَاتُ ٱلْأُخْتِ وَأُمَّهَٰتُكُمُ ٱلَّٰتِىٓ أَرْضَعْنَكُمْ وَأَخَوَٰتُكُم مِّنَ ٱلرَّضَٰعَةِ وَأُمَّهَٰتُ نِسَآئِكُمْ وَرَبَٰٓئِبُكُمُ ٱلَّٰتِى فِى حُجُورِكُم مِّن نِّسَآئِكُمُ ٱلَّٰتِى دَخَلْتُم بِهِنَّ فَإِن لَّمْ تَكُونُوا۟ دَخَلْتُم بِهِنَّ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْكُمْ وَحَلَٰٓئِلُ أَبْنَآئِكُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ مِنْ أَصْلَٰبِكُمْ وَأَن تَجْمَعُوا۟ بَيْنَ ٱلْأُخْتَيْنِ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ سَلَفَ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا
Quran 4:23; word-by-word gloss of the marked word: "and your step daughters"

Learning the words of r-b-b

رَبّ (rabb), no. 12 with 975, is on our list of the 100 most common Quran words, which counts it the same way. The root r-b-b 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.

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