δούλη
female slave
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where G1399 appears in the Book of Acts — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
Acts
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
δουλη — transliterated doúlē — is a Greek noun carrying the sense “female slave.” With only 3 verses it sits in the long tail of Greek New Testament vocabulary. Its uses cluster heavily in Luke (67% of all occurrences). Debuting at Luke 1:38, it then recurs through the corpus. Sharing its root, it stands alongside δουλος, δουλαγωγεω and δουλευω. Dig into 3-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1399 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 3
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 3 distinct verses.
- 2 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 2 of 27 New Testament books.
- #2,203
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 2,203 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 3 occurrences in the concordance →
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 3 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 3 verses · 100%
- Gospels 2 verses · 67%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Handmaid 1×, Handmaiden 1×, Handmaidens 1×
- American Standard Version: Handmaid 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Servant 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Female servant 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1399 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1399 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1399 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1399 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 1 sense Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- a female slave, bondmaid, handmaid
Word origin
Derived from δουλος (doûlos) (G1401) — slave.
Feminine of G1401 ; a female slave (involuntarily or voluntarily): - handmaid (-en).
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms G1399 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| δούλας doúlas | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine | Acts 2:18 | 1 |
| δούλη doúlē | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Luke 1:38 | 1 |
| δούλης doúlēs | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine | Luke 1:48 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1399, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- δουλαγωγεω doulagōgéō G1396 to enslave
- δουλευω douleúō G1398 to serve
- δουλον doûlon G1400 slave
- δουλοω doulóō G1402 to enslave
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word δουλη appears 36 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 32 verses in 11 books.
- 36
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 32
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 21:7 δούλη
- Leviticus 25:44 δούλη
- Ruth 2:13 δούλη
- 1 Samuel 1:11 δούλη
- 2 Samuel 14:6 δούλη
- 1 Kings 1:13 δούλη
- 2 Kings 4:2 δούλη
- 2 Chronicles 28:10 δούλη
- Isaiah 14:2 δούλη
- Joel 3:2 δούλη
- Nahum 2:8 δούλη
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1399) appears in the Greek Septuagint. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Exodus 21:7 δούλη "If a man sells his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.
- Leviticus 25:44 δούλη "'As for your male and your female slaves, whom you may have; of the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves.
- Ruth 2:13 δούλη Then she said, Let me find favor in your sight, my lord, because you have comforted me, and because you have spoken kindly to your handmaid, though I am not as one of your handmaidens.
- Ruth 3:9 δούλη He said, Who are you? She answered, I am Ruth your handmaid: spread therefore your skirt over your handmaid; for you are a near kinsman.
- 1 Samuel 1:11 δούλη She vowed a vow, and said, Yahweh of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your handmaid, and remember me, and not forget your handmaid, but will give to your handmaid a man-child, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come on his head.
- 1 Samuel 1:16 δούλη Don't count your handmaid for a wicked woman; for out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation have I spoken hitherto.
- 1 Samuel 1:18 δούλη She said, Let your handmaid find favor in your sight. So the woman went her way, and ate; and her facial expression wasn't sad any more.
- 1 Samuel 8:16 δούλη He will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your best young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
- 1 Samuel 25:24 δούλη She fell at his feet, and said, On me, my lord, on me be the iniquity; and please let your handmaid speak in your ears. Hear the words of your handmaid.
- 1 Samuel 25:25 δούλη Please don't let my lord regard this worthless fellow, even Nabal; for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I your handmaid didn't see the young men of my lord, whom you did send.
- 1 Samuel 25:27 δούλη Now this present which your servant has brought to my lord, let it be given to the young men who follow my lord.
- 1 Samuel 25:28 δούλη Please forgive the trespass of your handmaid: for Yahweh will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fights the battles of Yahweh; and evil shall not be found in you all your days.
- 1 Samuel 25:31 δούλη that this shall be no grief to you, nor offense of heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that my lord has avenged himself. When Yahweh shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember your handmaid.
- 1 Samuel 25:41 δούλη She arose, and bowed herself with her face to the earth, and said, Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.
- 1 Samuel 28:21 δούλη The woman came to Saul, and saw that he was sore troubled, and said to him, Behold, your handmaid has listened to your voice, and I have put my life in my hand, and have listened to your words which you spoke to me.
- 1 Samuel 28:22 δούλη Now therefore, please listen also to the voice of your handmaid, and let me set a morsel of bread before you; and eat, that you may have strength, when you go on your way.
- 2 Samuel 14:6 δούλη Your handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was none to part them, but the one struck the other, and killed him.
- 2 Samuel 14:7 δούλη Behold, the whole family is risen against your handmaid, and they say, Deliver him who struck his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he killed, and so destroy the heir also. Thus will they quench my coal which is left, and will leave to my husband neither name nor remainder on the surface of the earth.
- 2 Samuel 14:12 δούλη Then the woman said, Please let your handmaid speak a word to my lord the king. He said, Say on.
- 2 Samuel 14:15 δούλη Now therefore seeing that I have come to speak this word to my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid: and your handmaid said, I will now speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant.
- 2 Samuel 14:16 δούλη For the king will hear, to deliver his servant out of the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.
- 2 Samuel 14:19 δούλη The king said, Is the hand of Joab with you in all this? The woman answered, As your soul lives, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken; for your servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of your handmaid;
- 2 Samuel 20:17 δούλη He came near to her; and the woman said, Are you Joab? He answered, I am. Then she said to him, Hear the words of your handmaid. He answered, I do hear.
- 1 Kings 1:13 δούλη Go and get you in to king David, and tell him, Didn't you, my lord, king, swear to your handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne? why then does Adonijah reign?
- 1 Kings 1:17 δούλη She said to him, My lord, you swore by Yahweh your God to your handmaid, [saying], Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne.
- 2 Kings 4:2 δούλη Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? tell me; what have you in the house? She said, Your handmaid has nothing in the house, except a pot of oil.
- 2 Kings 4:16 δούλη He said, At this season, when the time comes round, you shall embrace a son. She said, No, my lord, you man of God, do not lie to your handmaid.
- 2 Chronicles 28:10 δούλη Now you purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondservants and bondmaids to you: [but] aren't there even with you trespasses of your own against Yahweh your God?
- Isaiah 14:2 δούλη The peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of Yahweh for servants and for handmaids: and they shall take them captive whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
- Isaiah 56:6 δούλη Also the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh, to minister to him, and to love the name of Yahweh, to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath from profaning it, and holds fast my covenant;
- Joel 3:2 δούλη I will gather all nations, And will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will execute judgment on them there for my people, And for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations. They have divided my land,
- Nahum 2:8 δούλη But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. "Stop! Stop!" they cry, but no one looks back.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1399) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.
