وَإِذْ زَيَّنَ لَهُمُ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنُ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ وَقَالَ لَا غَالِبَ لَكُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ وَإِنِّى جَارٌ لَّكُمْ فَلَمَّا تَرَآءَتِ ٱلْفِئَتَانِ نَكَصَ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيْهِ وَقَالَ إِنِّى بَرِىٓءٌ مِّنكُمْ إِنِّىٓ أَرَىٰ مَا لَا تَرَوْنَ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ ٱللَّهَ وَٱللَّهُ شَدِيدُ ٱلْعِقَابِ
Quran glossary · draft
نَكَصَ
retreat
To draw backward and abandon a previously assumed stance.
Lexical scope
Scope: curated segment set · Occurrences: 2
Roots: نكص
Lemmas: نكص
Forms: نَكَصَ · تَنكِصُ
Occurrence examples (2 of 2)
Scoped occurrences shown in Quran order: 2.
قَدْ كَانَتْ ءَايَٰتِى تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ فَكُنتُمْ عَلَىٰٓ أَعْقَٰبِكُمْ تَنكِصُونَ
Why this meaning was chosen
Quran-internal review covered both Form I occurrences. In 8:48 Satan retreats on his heels when the two forces come into view, abandoning those he had encouraged; in 23:66 people repeatedly retreat on their heels when God's signs are recited. The shared heel construction makes backward withdrawal explicit, while the contexts add abandonment or rejection. Perfect and imperfect aspect do not change the lexical action. The aligned-reading field supplies no variant requiring a separate rule; no protected meaning was edited and no exact lexical collision was found.