κόσμος
world
‘world’ is one of 8 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Dative-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
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
2 verses where G2889 appears in the Dative case in the Book of Colossians. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Colossians
- Colossians 1:6 κόσμῳ n dat sg masc which has come to you; even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth;
- Colossians 2:20 κόσμου κόσμῳ n gen sg masc n dat sg masc If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
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.
“world” is the headline sense of the Greek noun κοσμος (kósmos). Catalogued under 8 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. It appears 149 verses across 20 books of the Greek New Testament, among its common vocabulary. More than a third of its appearances fall in John. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 4:8. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2889 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 →
- 149
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 149 distinct verses.
- 20 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 20 of 27 New Testament books.
- #86
- by frequency
- Top 100 most frequent Greek words (rank 86 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 149 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- John 56 verses 38%
- 1 Corinthians 17 verses 11%
- 1 John 17 verses 11%
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 149 distinct verses.
- Johannine 77 verses · 52%
- Gospels 70 verses · 47%
- Pauline corpus 41 verses · 28%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 29 verses · 19%
- Hebrews 5 verses · 3%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 4 verses · 3%
- Revelation 3 verses · 2%
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: World 185×
- American Standard Version: World 179×, The 5×, Of 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: World 176×, Whole world 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: World 185×, Of 9×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2889 across 187 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G2889 across 191 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2889 across 183 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 3 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2889 across 198 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.
8 senses in Thayer's, in lexicon order
The 8 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.
- an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government
- ornament…
- the world, the universe
- the circle of the earth, the earth
- the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family
- the ungodly multitude; the whole mass of men alienated from God, and therefore hostile to the cause of Christ
- world affairs, the aggregate of things earthly
- any aggregate or general collection of particulars of any sort
Word origin
Derived from κομιζω (komízō) (G2865) — to care for.
Probably from the base of G2865 ; orderly arrangement that is decoration ; by implication the world (in a wide or narrow sense including its inhabitants literally or figuratively [morally]): - adorning world.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 4 distinct written forms G2889 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| κόσμου kósmou | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 4:8 | 71 |
| κόσμον kósmon | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 16:26 | 45 |
| κόσμῳ kósmō | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 18:7 | 36 |
| κόσμος kósmos | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 13:38 | 32 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2889, 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
Derived from this word
- κοσμεω kosméō G2885 to arrange
- κοσμικος kosmikós G2886 worldly
- κοσμιος kósmios G2887 well-arranged
- κοσμοκρατωρ kosmokrátōr G2888 worldly ruler
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word κοσμος appears 28 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 26 verses in 9 books.
- 28
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 26
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 2:1 κόσμος
- Exodus 33:5 κόσμος
- Deuteronomy 4:19 κόσμος
- 2 Samuel 1:24 κόσμος
- Proverbs 17:6 κόσμος
- Isaiah 3:18 κόσμος
- Jeremiah 2:32 κόσμος
- Ezekiel 7:20 κόσμος
- Nahum 2:10 κόσμος
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2889) 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 2:1 κόσμος The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
- Exodus 33:5 κόσμος Yahweh said to Moses, "Tell the children of Israel, 'You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go up into your midst for one moment, I would consume you. Therefore now take off your jewelry from you, that I may know what to do to you."
- Exodus 33:6 κόσμος The children of Israel stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount Horeb onward.
- Deuteronomy 4:19 κόσμος and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
- Deuteronomy 17:3 κόσμος and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of the sky, which I have not commanded;
- 2 Samuel 1:24 κόσμος You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet delicately, Who put ornaments of gold on your clothing.
- Proverbs 17:6 κόσμος Children's children are the crown of old men; The glory of children are their parents.
- Proverbs 20:20 κόσμος Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
- Proverbs 28:17 κόσμος A man who is tormented by life blood will be a fugitive until death; No one will support him.
- Proverbs 29:17 κόσμος Correct your son, and he will give you peace; Yes, he will bring delight to your soul.
- Isaiah 3:18 κόσμος In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, the headbands, the crescent necklaces,
- Isaiah 3:19 κόσμος the earrings, the bracelets, the veils,
- Isaiah 3:20 κόσμος the headdresses, the ankle chains, the sashes, the perfume bottles, the charms,
- Isaiah 3:24 κόσμος It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; Instead of a belt, a rope; Instead of well set hair, baldness; Instead of a robe, a girding of sackcloth; And branding instead of beauty.
- Isaiah 3:26 κόσμος Her gates shall lament and mourn; And she shall be desolate and sit on the ground.
- Isaiah 13:10 κόσμος For the stars of the sky and the constellations of it shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine.
- Isaiah 24:21 κόσμος It shall happen in that day, that Yahweh will punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth.
- Isaiah 40:26 κόσμος Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is lacking.
- Isaiah 49:18 κόσμος Lift up your eyes round about, and see: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live, says Yahweh, you shall surely clothe you with them all as with an ornament, and gird yourself with them, like a bride.
- Isaiah 61:10 κόσμος I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
- Jeremiah 2:32 κόσμος Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.
- Jeremiah 4:30 κόσμος You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain do you make yourself beautiful; [your] lovers despise you, they seek your life.
- Ezekiel 7:20 κόσμος As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations [and] their detestable things therein: therefore have I made it to them as an unclean thing.
- Ezekiel 16:11 κόσμος I decked you with ornaments, and I put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck.
- Ezekiel 23:40 κόσμος Furthermore you have sent for men who come from far, to whom a messenger was sent, and, behold, they came; for whom you did wash yourself, paint your eyes, and deck yourself with ornaments,
- Nahum 2:10 κόσμος She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2889) 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.
