μεγαλύνω
to magnify
‘to magnify’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Imperfect-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
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Aorist, Passive, Infinitive 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Future, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Imperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G3170 appears — 8 distinct verses across 5 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 1 verse
Luke 2 verses
Acts 3 verses
- Acts 5:13 ἐμεγάλυνεν impf act ind 3sg None of the rest dared to join them, however the people honored them.
- Acts 10:46 μεγαλυνόντων pres act ptcp gen pl masc For they heard them speaking in other languages and magnifying God. Then Peter answered,
- Acts 19:17 ἐμεγαλύνετο impf pass ind 3sg This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived at Ephesus. Fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
2 Corinthians 1 verse
Philippians 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.
“to magnify” is the headline sense of the Greek verb μεγαλυνω (megalýnō). Scripture first uses it in Matthew 23:5. With 8 verses in 5 books, it is an uncommon word in the Greek New Testament. It concentrates in Acts, which alone accounts for 38% of its uses. Catalogued under 3 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G3170 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 5 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 5 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,240
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,240 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 5 verses · 63%
- Gospels 3 verses · 38%
- Pauline corpus 2 verses · 25%
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: Doth magnify 1×, Enlarge 1×, Had shewed great 1×
- American Standard Version: Doth magnify 1×, Enlarge 1×, Had magnified 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Exalting 1×, Had shown her great 1×, Lengthen 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Be enlarged 1×, Extolled 1×, Had magnified 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G3170 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G3170 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G3170 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G3170 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in Thayer's
The 3 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.
- metaph. to make conspicuous
- to esteem highly, to extol, laud, celebrate
- to get glory and praise
Word origin
Derived from μεγας (mégas) (G3173) — great.
From G3173 ; to make (or declare ) great that is increase or (figuratively) extol : - enlarge magnify shew great.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms G3170 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐμεγάλυνεν emegálynen | Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Luke 1:58 | 2 |
| μεγαλυνθήσεται megalynthḗsetai | Verb, Future, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Philippians 1:20 | 1 |
| μεγαλυνθῆναι megalynthē̂nai | Verb, Aorist, Passive, Infinitive | 2 Corinthians 10:15 | 1 |
| μεγαλυνόντων megalynóntōn | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Acts 10:46 | 1 |
| μεγαλύνει megalýnei | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Luke 1:46 | 1 |
| μεγαλύνουσιν megalýnousin | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Matthew 23:5 | 1 |
| ἐμεγαλύνετο emegalýneto | Verb, Imperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 19:17 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G3170, 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
- μεγαλαυχεω megalauchéō G3166 to boast greatly
- μεγαλειος megaleîos G3167 magnificent
- μεγαλοπρεπης megaloprepḗs G3169 magnificent
- μεγαλως megálōs G3171 greatly
- μεγαλωσυνη megalōsýnē G3172 majesty
- μεγεθος mégethos G3174 greatness
- μεγιστος mégistos G3176 greatest
- μειζων meízōn G3187 greater
- μηκος mēkos G3372 length
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 11 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word μεγαλυνω appears 66 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 66 verses in 23 books.
- 66
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 66
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 23 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 23 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 12:2 μεγαλύνω
- Numbers 15:3 μεγαλύνω
- 1 Samuel 2:21 μεγαλύνω
- 2 Samuel 5:10 μεγαλύνω
- 1 Kings 1:37 μεγαλύνω
- 1 Chronicles 11:9 μεγαλύνω
- 2 Chronicles 1:1 μεγαλύνω
- Ezra 9:6 μεγαλύνω
- Job 7:17 μεγαλύνω
- Psalms 11:5 μεγαλύνω
- Proverbs 8:16 μεγαλύνω
- Ecclesiastes 1:16 μεγαλύνω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3170) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 66. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 12:2 μεγαλύνω I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you, and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
- Genesis 19:19 μεγαλύνω See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.
- Genesis 43:34 μεγαλύνω He sent portions to them from before him, but Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs. They drank, and were merry with him.
- Numbers 15:3 μεγαλύνω and will make an offering by fire to Yahweh, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice, to accomplish a vow, or as a freewill-offering, or in your set feasts, to make a sweet savor to Yahweh, of the herd, or of the flock;
- Numbers 15:8 μεγαλύνω When you prepare a bull for a burnt offering, or for a sacrifice, to accomplish a vow, or for peace-offerings to Yahweh;
- 1 Samuel 2:21 μεγαλύνω Yahweh visited Hannah, and she conceived, and bore three sons and two daughters. The child Samuel grew before Yahweh.
- 1 Samuel 2:26 μεγαλύνω The child Samuel grew on, and increased in favor both with Yahweh, and also with men.
- 1 Samuel 3:19 μεγαλύνω Samuel grew, and Yahweh was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.
- 1 Samuel 12:24 μεγαλύνω Only fear Yahweh, and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things he has done for you.
- 1 Samuel 26:24 μεγαλύνω Behold, as your life was much set by this day in my eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of Yahweh, and let him deliver me out of all oppression.
- 2 Samuel 5:10 μεγαλύνω David grew greater and greater; for Yahweh, the God of hosts, was with him.
- 2 Samuel 7:22 μεγαλύνω Therefore you are great, Yahweh God: for there is none like you, neither is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
- 2 Samuel 7:26 μεγαλύνω Let your name be magnified forever, saying, Yahweh of hosts is God over Israel; and the house of your servant David shall be established before you.
- 2 Samuel 22:51 μεγαλύνω Great deliverance gives he to his king, Shows loving kindness to his anointed, To David and to his seed, forevermore.
- 1 Kings 1:37 μεγαλύνω As Yahweh has been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David.
- 1 Kings 1:47 μεγαλύνω Moreover the king's servants came to bless our lord king David, saying, Your God make the name of Solomon better than your name, and make his throne greater than your throne: and the king bowed himself on the bed.
- 1 Kings 10:23 μεγαλύνω So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.
- 1 Chronicles 11:9 μεγαλύνω David grew greater and greater; for Yahweh of Hosts was with him.
- 1 Chronicles 29:12 μεγαλύνω Both riches and honor come of you, and you rule over all; and in your hand is power and might; and it is in your hand to make great, and to give strength to all.
- 1 Chronicles 29:25 μεγαλύνω Yahweh magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed on him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 1:1 μεγαλύνω Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and Yahweh his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly.
- Ezra 9:6 μεγαλύνω and I said, my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you, my God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our guiltiness is grown up to the heavens.
- Job 7:17 μεγαλύνω What is man, that you should magnify him, That you should set your mind on him,
- Job 19:5 μεγαλύνω If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, And plead against me my reproach;
- Psalms 11:5 μεγαλύνω Yahweh examines the righteous, But the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates.
- Psalms 17:51 μεγαλύνω
- Psalms 19:6 μεγαλύνω His going forth is from the end of the heavens, His circuit to its ends; There is nothing hidden from its heat.
- Psalms 19:8 μεγαλύνω Yahweh's precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. Yahweh's commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes.
- Psalms 33:4 μεγαλύνω For the word of Yahweh is right. All his work is done in faithfulness.
- Psalms 34:27 μεγαλύνω
- Psalms 39:17 μεγαλύνω
- Psalms 40:10 μεγαλύνω I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great assembly.
- Psalms 56:11 μεγαλύνω I have put my trust in God. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
- Psalms 68:31 μεγαλύνω Princes shall come out of Egypt. Ethiopia shall hurry to stretch out her hands to God.
- Psalms 69:5 μεγαλύνω God, you know my foolishness. My sins aren't hidden from you.
- Psalms 91:6 μεγαλύνω Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, Nor of the destruction that wastes at noonday.
- Psalms 125:2 μεγαλύνω As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So Yahweh surrounds his people from this time forth and forevermore.
- Psalms 125:3 μεγαλύνω For the scepter of wickedness won't remain over the allotment of the righteous; So that the righteous won't use their hands to do evil.
- Psalms 137:2 μεγαλύνω On the willows in the midst of it, We hung up our harps.
- Proverbs 8:16 μεγαλύνω By me princes rule; Nobles, and all the righteous rulers of the earth.
- Ecclesiastes 1:16 μεγαλύνω I said to myself, "Behold, I have obtained for myself great wisdom above all who were before me in Jerusalem. Yes, my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge."
- Ecclesiastes 2:4 μεγαλύνω I made myself great works. I built myself houses. I planted myself vineyards.
- Ecclesiastes 2:9 μεγαλύνω So I was great, and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me.
- Isaiah 42:21 μεγαλύνω It pleased Yahweh, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify the law, and make it honorable.
- Jeremiah 5:27 μεγαλύνω As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and grew rich.
- Jeremiah 31:26 μεγαλύνω On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.
- Jeremiah 31:42 μεγαλύνω
- Jeremiah 38:14 μεγαλύνω Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet to him into the third entry that is in the house of Yahweh: and the king said to Jeremiah, I will ask you a thing; hide nothing from me.
- Lamentations 1:9 μεγαλύνω Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn't remember her latter end; Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she has no comforter: See, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.
- Lamentations 2:13 μεγαλύνω What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3170) 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.
