καταφρονέω
to despise
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Present-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
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- 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).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 times (22%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 1 time (11%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural 1 time (11%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural 1 time (11%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular 1 time (11%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (11%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (11%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (11%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 9 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G2706 appears — 9 distinct verses across 7 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 2 verses
- Matthew 6:24 καταφρονήσει fut act ind 3sg "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and Mammon.
- Matthew 18:10 καταφρονήσητε aor act subj 2pl See that you don't despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
Luke 1 verse
Romans 1 verse
1 Corinthians 1 verse
1 Timothy 2 verses
- 1 Timothy 4:12 καταφρονείτω pres act impv 3sg Let no man despise your youth; but be an example to those who believe, in word, in your way of life, in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.
- 1 Timothy 6:2 καταφρονείτωσαν pres act impv 3pl Those who have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brothers, but rather let them serve them, because those who partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. Teach and exhort these things.
Hebrews 1 verse
2 Peter 1 verse
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 καταφρονεω centers on the idea of “to despise.” First canonically at Matthew 6:24, it enters the text early. The Greek New Testament uses it across 9 verses — uncommon. Related forms include κατα, καθα and καθαιρεω. Dig into 9-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2706 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 7 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 7 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,140
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,140 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 9 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 9 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 4 verses · 44%
- Gospels 3 verses · 33%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 11%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 11%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 11%
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: Despise 5×
- American Standard Version: Despise 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Despise 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Despise 3×, Despising 2×, Will despise 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2706 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 G2706 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 G2706 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2706 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 contemn, despise, disdain, think little or nothing of
Word origin
Derived from κατα (katá) (G2596) — down.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G2706 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| καταφρονήσει kataphronḗsei | Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 6:24 | 2 |
| καταφρονήσας kataphronḗsas | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Hebrews 12:2 | 1 |
| καταφρονήσητε kataphronḗsēte | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural | Matthew 18:10 | 1 |
| καταφρονείτω kataphroneítō | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular | 1 Timothy 4:12 | 1 |
| καταφρονείτωσαν kataphroneítōsan | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Plural | 1 Timothy 6:2 | 1 |
| καταφρονεῖς kataphroneîs | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular | Romans 2:4 | 1 |
| καταφρονεῖτε kataphroneîte | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural | 1 Corinthians 11:22 | 1 |
| καταφρονοῦντας kataphronoûntas | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine | 2 Peter 2:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2706, 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
- καθα kathá G2505 according as
- καθαιρεω kathairéō G2507 to tear down
- καθαπτω katháptō G2510 to fasten down
- καθεδρα kathédra G2515 seat
- καθεζομαι kathézomai G2516 to sit down
- καθεξης kathexēs G2517 in order
- καθευδω katheúdō G2518 to fall asleep
- καθηγητης kathēgētḗs G2519 guide
- καθηκω kathḗkō G2520 to come down
- καθημαι káthēmai G2521 to sit down
- καθημερινος kathēmerinós G2522 daily
- καθιημι kathíēmi G2524 to send down
- καθιστημι kathístēmi G2525 to place
- καθο kathó G2526 according to what
- καθολου kathólou G2527 wholly
- καθοπλιζω kathoplízō G2528 to arm
- καθοραω kathoráō G2529 to see clearly
- καθοτι kathóti G2530 according to what
- καθως kathṓs G2531 according as
- καμμυω kammýō G2576 to close eyes
- καταβαινω katabaínō G2597 to descend
- καταβαλλω katabállō G2598 to cast down
- καταβαρεω katabaréō G2599 to weigh down
- καταβιβαζω katabibázō G2601 to bring down
+103 more words share this root (not shown).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 130 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word καταφρονεω appears 12 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 11 verses in 6 books.
- 12
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 11
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 27:12 καταφρονέω
- Proverbs 13:13 καταφρονέω
- Jeremiah 2:36 καταφρονέω
- Hosea 6:7 καταφρονέω
- Habakkuk 1:13 καταφρονέω
- Zephaniah 1:12 καταφρονέω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2706) 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 27:12 καταφρονέω What if my father touches me? I will seem to him as a deceiver, and I would bring a curse on myself, and not a blessing."
- Proverbs 13:13 καταφρονέω Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, But he who respects a command will be rewarded.
- Proverbs 13:15 καταφρονέω Good understanding wins favor; But the way of the unfaithful is hard.
- Proverbs 18:3 καταφρονέω When wickedness comes, contempt also comes, And with shame comes disgrace.
- Proverbs 19:16 καταφρονέω He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, But he who is contemptuous in his ways shall die.
- Proverbs 23:22 καταφρονέω Listen to your father who gave you life, And don't despise your mother when she is old.
- Proverbs 25:9 καταφρονέω Debate your case with your neighbor, And don't betray the confidence of another;
- Jeremiah 2:36 καταφρονέω Why go you about so much to change your way? you shall be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.
- Hosea 6:7 καταφρονέω But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.
- Habakkuk 1:13 καταφρονέω You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he,
- Zephaniah 1:12 καταφρονέω It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, "Yahweh will not do good, neither will he do evil."
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2706) 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.
