εκατονταρχης
centurion
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Nominative-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 11 times (55%)
- Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine 4 times (20%)
- Noun, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 2 times (10%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (5%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine 1 time (5%)
- Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine 1 time (5%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 20 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1543 appears — 20 distinct verses across 3 books. 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.
Matthew 4 verses
- Matthew 8:5 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc When he came into Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking him,
- Matthew 8:8 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc The centurion answered, "Lord, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
- Matthew 8:13 ἑκατοντάρχῃ n dat sg masc Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed." His servant was healed in that hour.
- Matthew 27:54 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc Now the centurion, and those who were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were done, feared exceedingly, saying, "Truly this was the Son of God."
Luke 3 verses
- Luke 7:2 Ἑκατοντάρχου n gen sg masc A certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick and at the point of death.
- Luke 7:6 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc Jesus went with them. When he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I am not worthy for you to come under my roof.
- Luke 23:47 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc When the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, "Certainly this was a righteous man."
Acts 13 verses
- Acts 10:1 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc Now there was a certain man in Caesarea, Cornelius by name, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment,
- Acts 10:22 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc They said, "Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous man and one who fears God, and well spoken of by all the nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to invite you to his house, and to listen to what you say."
- Acts 21:32 ἑκατοντάρχας n acc pl masc Immediately he took soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them. They, when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, stopped beating Paul.
- Acts 22:25 ἑκατόνταρχον n acc sg masc When they had tied him up with thongs, Paul asked the centurion who stood by, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and not found guilty?"
- Acts 22:26 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc When the centurion heard it, he went to the commanding officer and told him, "Watch what you are about to do, for this man is a Roman!"
- Acts 23:17 ἑκατονταρχῶν n gen pl masc Paul summoned one of the centurions, and said, "Bring this young man to the commanding officer, for he has something to tell him."
- Acts 23:23 ἑκατονταρχῶν n gen pl masc He called to himself two of the centurions, and said, "Prepare two hundred soldiers to go as far as Caesarea, with seventy horsemen, and two hundred men armed with spears, at the third hour of the night."
- Acts 24:23 ἑκατοντάρχῃ n dat sg masc He ordered the centurion that Paul should be kept in custody, and should have some privileges, and not to forbid any of his friends to serve him or to visit him.
- Acts 27:1 ἑκατοντάρχῃ n dat sg masc When it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band.
- Acts 27:6 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy, and he put us on board.
- Acts 27:11 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc But the centurion gave more heed to the master and to the owner of the ship than to those things which were spoken by Paul.
- Acts 27:31 ἑκατοντάρχῃ n dat sg masc Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, "Unless these stay in the ship, you can't be saved."
- Acts 27:43 ἑκατοντάρχης n nom sg masc But the centurion, desiring to save Paul, stopped them from their purpose, and commanded that those who could swim should throw themselves overboard first to go toward the land;
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.
At its core, εκατονταρχης (hekatontárchēs) means “centurion.” Its uses cluster heavily in Acts (65% of all occurrences). Spanning 20 verses in 3 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. It first appears in Matthew 8:5. Sharing its root, it stands alongside εκατον, εκατονταετης and εκατονταπλασιων. Dig into 20-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1543 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 →
- 20
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 20 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #622
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 622 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 20 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the New Testament
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 20 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 16 verses · 80%
- Gospels 7 verses · 35%
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: Centurion 17×, Centurions 3×
- American Standard Version: Centurion 17×, Centurions 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Centurion 17×, Centurions 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Centurion 17×, Centurions 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1543 across 21 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1543 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1543 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1543 across 21 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.
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.
- an officer in the Roman army
Word origin
Derived from εκατον (hekatón) (G1540) — hundred.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G1543 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἑκατοντάρχης hekatontárchēs | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 8:5 | 11 |
| ἑκατοντάρχῃ hekatontárchē | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 8:13 | 4 |
| ἑκατονταρχῶν hekatontarchō̂n | Noun, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Acts 23:17 | 2 |
| ἑκατοντάρχας hekatontárchas | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine | Acts 21:32 | 1 |
| ἑκατόνταρχον hekatóntarchon | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Acts 22:25 | 1 |
| Ἑκατοντάρχου Hekatontárchou | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | Luke 7:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1543, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word εκατονταρχης appears 2 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 2 verses in 1 book.
- 2
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 2
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- 2 Kings 11:10 ἑκατοντάρχης
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1543) 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.
- 2 Kings 11:10 ἑκατοντάρχης The priest delivered to the captains over hundreds the spears and shields that had been king David's, which were in the house of Yahweh.
- 2 Kings 11:15 ἑκατοντάρχης Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds who were set over the host, and said to them, Have her forth between the ranks; and him who follows her kill with the sword. For the priest said, Don't let her be slain in the house of Yahweh.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1543) 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.
