ἐπαινέω
to approve
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Aorist-tense verb in the Greek New Testament →
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).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective 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.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
Person
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 3 times (50%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 1st person, Singular 1 time (17%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 6 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1867 appears — 5 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.
Luke 1 verse
Romans 1 verse
1 Corinthians 3 verses
- 1 Corinthians 11:2 Ἐπαινῶ pres act ind 1sg Now I praise you, brothers, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm the traditions, even as I delivered them to you.
- 1 Corinthians 11:17 ἐπαινῶ pres act ind 1sg But in giving you this command, I don't praise you, that you come together not for the better but for the worse.
- 1 Corinthians 11:22 ἐπαινέσω ἐπαινῶ aor act subj 1sg pres act ind 1sg What, don't you have houses to eat and to drink in? Or do you despise God's assembly, and put them to shame who don't have? What shall I tell you? Shall I praise you? In this I don't praise you.
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.
The Greek verb επαινεω centers on the idea of “to approve.” A scarce word — 5 verses in all of the Greek New Testament. 1 Corinthians dominates its distribution — 3 of 5 verses. Debuting at Luke 16:8, it then recurs through the corpus. Sharing its root, it stands alongside επι, επαγγελλω and επαγω. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1867 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,476
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,476 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Corinthians 3 verses 60%
- Luke 1 verse 20%
- Romans 1 verse 20%
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 5 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 4 verses · 80%
- Gospels 1 verse · 20%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 20%
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: I praise 2×
- American Standard Version: I praise 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Commended 1×, Extol 1×, I commend 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: I do 2×, Praise you 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1867 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1867 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 G1867 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1867 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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.
- to approve, to praise
Word origin
Derived from επι (epí) (G1909) — upon.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G1867 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐπαινῶ epainō̂ | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | 1 Corinthians 11:17 | 2 |
| ἐπαινέσω epainésō | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 1st person, Singular | 1 Corinthians 11:22 | 1 |
| ἐπαινεσάτωσαν epainesátōsan | Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Plural | Romans 15:11 | 1 |
| ἐπῄνεσεν epḗnesen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Luke 16:8 | 1 |
| Ἐπαινῶ Epainō̂ | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | 1 Corinthians 11:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1867, 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
- επαγγελλω epangéllō G1861 to announce
- επαγω epágō G1863 to bring upon
- επαγωνιζομαι epagōnízomai G1864 to contend
- επαθροιζω epathroízō G1865 to gather together
- επαινος épainos G1868 approval
- επαιρω epaírō G1869 to lift up
- επαισχυνομαι epaischýnomai G1870 to be ashamed
- επαιτεω epaitéō G1871 to ask repeatedly
- επακουω epakoúō G1873 to give ear to
- επακροαομαι epakroáomai G1874 to listen to
- επαν epán G1875 after
- επαναγκες epánankes G1876 necessarily
- επαναγω epanágō G1877 to lead back
- επαναμιμνησκω epanamimnḗskō G1878 to remind
- επαναπαυομαι epanapaúomai G1879 to rest upon
- επανερχομαι epanérchomai G1880 to return
- επανισταμαι epanístamai G1881 to raise up against
- επανορθωσις epanórthōsis G1882 correction
- επανω epánō G1883 above
- επαρκεω eparkéō G1884 to avail
- επαρχια eparchía G1885 office of governor
- επαυλις épaulis G1886 farm
- επαυριον epaúrion G1887 the next day
- επαυτοφωρω epautophṓrōi G1888 caught in the act
+110 more words share this root (not shown).
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 138 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word επαινεω appears 18 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 18 verses in 4 books.
- 18
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 18
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 12:15 ἐπιαἰνέω
- Psalms 9:24 ἐπιαἰνέω
- Ecclesiastes 4:2 ἐπιαἰνέω
- Daniel 4:29 ἐπιαἰνέω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1867) 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 12:15 ἐπιαἰνέω The princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
- Psalms 9:24 ἐπιαἰνέω
- Psalms 33:3 ἐπιαἰνέω Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully with a shout of joy!
- Psalms 43:9 ἐπιαἰνέω
- Psalms 55:5 ἐπιαἰνέω Fearfulness and trembling have come on me. Horror has overwhelmed me.
- Psalms 62:4 ἐπιαἰνέω They fully intend to throw him down from his lofty place. They delight in lies. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.
- Psalms 62:12 ἐπιαἰνέω Also to you, Lord, belongs loving kindness, For you reward every man according to his work.
- Psalms 63:11 ἐπιαἰνέω But the king shall rejoice in God. Everyone who swears by him will praise him, For the mouth of those who speak lies shall be silenced.
- Psalms 101:9 ἐπιαἰνέω
- Psalms 104:3 ἐπιαἰνέω He lays the beams of his chambers in the waters. He makes the clouds his chariot. He walks on the wings of the wind.
- Psalms 105:5 ἐπιαἰνέω Remember his marvelous works that he has done; His wonders, and the judgments of his mouth,
- Psalms 116:1 ἐπιαἰνέω I love Yahweh, because he listens to my voice, And my cries for mercy.
- Psalms 144:4 ἐπιαἰνέω Man is like a breath. His days are like a shadow that passes away.
- Psalms 147:1 ἐπιαἰνέω Praise Yah, For it is good to sing praises to our God; For it is pleasant and fitting to praise him.
- Ecclesiastes 4:2 ἐπιαἰνέω Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.
- Ecclesiastes 8:10 ἐπιαἰνέω So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 8:15 ἐπιαἰνέω Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.
- Daniel 4:29 ἐπιαἰνέω At the end of twelve months he was walking in the royal palace of Babylon.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1867) 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.
