ἐκτρέφω
to nurture
‘to nurture’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (50%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural 1 time (50%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 2 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1625 appears — 2 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Ephesians 2 verses
- Ephesians 5:29 ἐκτρέφει pres act ind 3sg For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly;
- Ephesians 6:4 ἐκτρέφετε pres act impv 2pl You fathers, don't provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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.
εκτρεφω (ektréphō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to nurture.” A scarce word — 2 verses in all of the Greek New Testament. It clusters heavily in Ephesians, which alone accounts for 100% of its uses. Scripture first uses it in Ephesians 5:29. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1625 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 1 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 1 of 27 New Testament books.
- #2,678
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Greek words (rank 2,678 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ephesians 2 verses 100%
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 2 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 2 verses · 100%
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: Bring 1×, Nourisheth 1×, Up 1×
- American Standard Version: Nourisheth 1×, Nurture 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Bring them up 1×, He nourishes 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: He nourishes 1×, Raise 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1625 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1625 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1625 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1625 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 senses 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.
- to nourish up to maturity, to nourish
- to nurture, bring up
Word origin
Derived from εκ (ek) (G1537) — from.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms G1625 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐκτρέφει ektréphei | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Ephesians 5:29 | 1 |
| ἐκτρέφετε ektréphete | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural | Ephesians 6:4 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1625, 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
- εκβαλλω ekbállō G1544 to cast out
- εκβασις ékbasis G1545 exit
- εκγαμιζω ekgamízō G1547 to give in marriage
- εκγαμισκω ekgamískō G1548 to give in marriage
- εκγονον ékgonon G1549 offspring
- εκδαπαναω ekdapanáō G1550 to spend
- εκδεχομαι ekdéchomai G1551 to receive
- εκδηλος ékdēlos G1552 evident
- εκδημεω ekdēméō G1553 to depart
- εκδιδωμι ekdídōmi G1554 to give out
- εκδιηγεομαι ekdiēgéomai G1555 to relate
- εκδικος ékdikos G1558 without justice
- εκδιωκω ekdiṓkō G1559 to banish
- εκδοτος ékdotos G1560 delivered up
- εκδυω ekdýō G1562 to put off
- εκζητεω ekzētéō G1567 to seek out
- εκθαμβος ékthambos G1569 astonished
- εκθετος ékthetos G1570 exposed
- εκκαθαιρω ekkathaírō G1571 to cleanse
- εκκαιω ekkaíō G1572 to burn
- εκκακεω ekkakéō G1573 to be exhausted
- εκκεντεω ekkentéō G1574 to pierce
- εκκλαω ekkláō G1575 to cut off
- εκκλειω ekkleíō G1576 to shut out
+88 more words share this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 114 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word εκτρεφω appears 20 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 20 verses in 13 books.
- 20
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 20
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 45:7 ἐκτρέφω
- 2 Samuel 12:3 ἐκτρέφω
- 1 Kings 11:20 ἐκτρέφω
- 2 Kings 10:6 ἐκτρέφω
- 2 Chronicles 10:8 ἐκτρέφω
- Job 31:18 ἐκτρέφω
- Psalms 22:2 ἐκτρέφω
- Proverbs 23:24 ἐκτρέφω
- Isaiah 23:4 ἐκτρέφω
- Ezekiel 31:4 ἐκτρέφω
- Hosea 9:12 ἐκτρέφω
- Jonah 4:10 ἐκτρέφω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1625) 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.
- Genesis 45:7 ἐκτρέφω God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
- Genesis 45:11 ἐκτρέφω There I will nourish you; for there are yet five years of famine; lest you come to poverty, you, and your household, and all that you have."'
- Genesis 47:17 ἐκτρέφω They brought their cattle to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the donkeys: and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that year.
- 2 Samuel 12:3 ἐκτρέφω but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him like a daughter.
- 1 Kings 11:20 ἐκτρέφω The sister of Tahpenes bore him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh's house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh's house among the sons of Pharaoh.
- 1 Kings 12:8 ἐκτρέφω But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.
- 1 Kings 12:10 ἐκτρέφω The young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, Thus shall you tell this people who spoke to you, saying, Your father made our yoke heavy, but make you it lighter to us; thus shall you speak to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's loins.
- 2 Kings 10:6 ἐκτρέφω Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, If you be on my side, and if you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men your master's sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time. Now the king's sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who brought them up.
- 2 Chronicles 10:8 ἐκτρέφω But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.
- 2 Chronicles 10:10 ἐκτρέφω The young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, Thus shall you tell the people who spoke to you, saying, Your father made our yoke heavy, but make you it lighter to us; thus shall you say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's loins.
- Job 31:18 ἐκτρέφω (No, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, Her have I guided from my mother's womb);
- Job 39:3 ἐκτρέφω They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, They end their labor pains.
- Psalms 22:2 ἐκτρέφω My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don't answer; In the night season, and am not silent.
- Proverbs 23:24 ἐκτρέφω The father of the righteous has great joy. Whoever fathers a wise child delights in him.
- Isaiah 23:4 ἐκτρέφω Be ashamed, Sidon; for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying, I have not travailed, nor brought forth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins.
- Isaiah 49:21 ἐκτρέφω Then shall you say in your heart, Who has conceived these for me, seeing I have been bereaved of my children, and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?
- Ezekiel 31:4 ἐκτρέφω The waters nourished it, the deep made it to grow: the rivers of it ran round about its plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.
- Hosea 9:12 ἐκτρέφω Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!
- Jonah 4:10 ἐκτρέφω Yahweh said, "You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.
- Zechariah 10:9 ἐκτρέφω I will sow them among the peoples; And they will remember me in far countries; And they will live with their children, and will return.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1625) 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.
