Quran glossary · draft

بَغِيّ

sexually unchaste woman

A woman characterized by sexual conduct outside the chastity boundary established by the surrounding statements.

Lexical scope

Scope: curated segment set · Occurrences: 2

Roots: بغي

Lemmas: بغي

Forms: بَغِيًّا

Occurrence examples (2 of 2)

Scoped occurrences shown in Quran order: 2.

19:20

قَالَتْ أَنَّىٰ يَكُونُ لِى غُلَٰمٌ وَلَمْ يَمْسَسْنِى بَشَرٌ وَلَمْ أَكُ بَغِيًّا

19:28

يَٰٓأُخْتَ هَٰرُونَ مَا كَانَ أَبُوكِ ٱمْرَأَ سَوْءٍ وَمَا كَانَتْ أُمُّكِ بَغِيًّا

Where other meanings fail

overreach

19:20

قَالَتْ أَنَّىٰ يَكُونُ لِى غُلَٰمٌ وَلَمْ يَمْسَسْنِى بَشَرٌ وَلَمْ أَكُ بَغِيًّا

Alternative: I was not an overreach.

Research rendering: I was not a sexually unchaste woman.

The segment is a person-predicate immediately paired with Mary's statement that no human touched her, so the action-noun rendering proposed for بَغْي fails here.

overreach

19:28

يَٰٓأُخْتَ هَٰرُونَ مَا كَانَ أَبُوكِ ٱمْرَأَ سَوْءٍ وَمَا كَانَتْ أُمُّكِ بَغِيًّا

Alternative: Your mother was not an overreach.

Research rendering: Your mother was not sexually unchaste.

The predicate describes the mother's sexual character within a family reproach; an abstract action noun is grammatically and contextually incoherent.

Why this meaning was chosen

Quran-internal reconciliation of all 96 occurrences. Direct objects and form VIII anchor purposeful seeking; عَلَى, بِغَيْرِ ٱلْحَقِّ, distortion, and barrier contexts anchor overreach as pursuit beyond a due bound; form VII presents what is fitting or attainable. The compacted 'overreach' candidate fits the بَغْي action noun but fails on the two بَغِيّ person-predicates, which receive an exact same-core sexual-status rendering. The single بِغاء noun is rendered from its explicit coercion/chastity/worldly-gain context rather than external commentary.