اِسْتَأْصَلَ to uproot in Arabic
اِسْتَأْصَلَ is how you say “to uproot” in Arabic.
Root ا ص ل ʾ-ṣ-l. verb (form X). istaʾṣala.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Meaning of to uproot in Arabic
- to uproot, eradicate, extirpate to pull something up, out, or off entirely from its root, foundation, or lowest part (e.g. a tree), or to cut it off together with its roots
- to destroy utterly, annihilate completely said of God destroying a people or disbelievers altogether; cf. the precative phrase استأصل الله شأفتهم, 'may God remove the last remnant of them'
- to remove something completely, down to nothing left extended to specific acts, e.g. performing circumcision so as to remove the prepuce utterly
Example sentence
فَاسْتَأْصَلَهُ
So he uprooted it.
فَاسْتَأْصَلَهُ so he uprooted it
Consecutive fa- ('so') on a heavy-pattern (Form X) past-tense verb with 'he' inside and an attached -hu, 'it', as its object. The added shell of this pattern gives the verb a thorough 'root-and-all' force, here 'uprooted it completely'.
The English is machine-translated.
Practise this word in the app
One tap gives you the meaning, a grammar note and audio.
Add the words you don’t know. Practise them with spaced repetition.
Free. No ads. No subscription.
An account is needed in the app.
How it is used
Form X of أصل, built on the base sense of أَصْل ("root, foundation"), so istaʾṣala literally means to go after something's very root and remove it entirely. It is used concretely of trees and other physical things ("cut off from its root or lowest part") and figuratively of peoples or enemies ("cut off their root/stock" i.e. wipe them out). It appears often in a precative or curse-like register — استأصل الله شأفتهم / استأصل الله الكفار, "may God extirpate/destroy them utterly" — a common formula in classical usage against enemies or evildoers.
Words from the same root
- أَصْلٌ root, foundation, lowest part of a thing
- تَأْصِيلٌ giving something a firm root or foundation; establishing firmly
- أَصَالَةٌ firmness, being firmly rooted; soundness of judgment
- مُسْتَأْصِلٌ one who/that which uproots or extirpates
- مُسْتَأْصَلَةٌ uprooted, extirpated
- أَصَلَةٌ a highly venomous serpent (linked to the idea of striking at the root)
Common questions
- How do you say "to uproot" in Arabic?
- اِسْتَأْصَلَ (istaʾṣala) — literally, to remove something entirely by its root or foundation.
- What does استأصل الله شأفتهم mean?
- "May God extirpate them" or "cut off the last remnant of them" — a classical precative curse invoking total removal, from the same root as istaʾṣala.
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).