Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

μένω

to remain

‘to remain’ is one of 7 main senses fuller range ↓

G3306 Strong's Greek
ménō Transliteration
/men'-o/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 117 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

μενω (ménō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to remain.” Its English rendering has broadened — “abide” classically, “remains” (Berean Standard Bible) and “remain” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 101 verses in 16 books, it ranks among the common words of the Greek New Testament. John dominates its distribution — 32 of 101 verses. Its lexical range runs to 7 senses. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
abide
Modern gloss
to remain
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current Thayer scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's G3306 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 →

101
distinct verses
The word appears in 101 distinct verses.
16 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 16 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 10:11
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 10:11.
Revelation 17:10
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Revelation 17:10.
#140
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 140 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 101 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 43 · 43%
  • Acts 12 · 12%
  • Pauline Epistles 17 · 17%
  • General Epistles 28 · 28%
  • Revelation 1 · 1%

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 101 distinct verses.

  • Johannine 53 verses · 52%
  • Gospels 43 verses · 43%
  • General (Catholic) Epistles 22 verses · 22%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 18 verses · 18%
  • Pauline corpus 17 verses · 17%
  • Hebrews 6 verses · 6%
  • Revelation 1 verse · 1%

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: Abide 20×, Abideth 16×, Dwelleth 8×
  • American Standard Version: Abideth 27×, Abide 24×, Abiding 6×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Remains 17×, Remain 15×, Stay 13×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Remain 25×, Remains 23×, Remaining 10×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G3306 across 125 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Abide” 20×
  • “Abideth” 16×
  • “Dwelleth” 8×
  • “Abode” 7×
  • “He abode” 5×
  • “Remaineth” 5×
  • “Continue” 4×
  • “Let” 4×
  • “Tarry” 4×
  • “Remain” 3×
  • “Tarried” 3×
  • “Abiding” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 30 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 2 further occurrences.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders G3306 across 127 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Abideth” 27×
  • “Abide” 24×
  • “Abiding” 6×
  • “Abode” 6×
  • “He abode” 5×
  • “Remained” 4×
  • “Abide ye” 3×
  • “He abideth” 3×
  • “He that abideth” 3×
  • “Remain” 3×
  • “Remaineth” 3×
  • “Shall abide” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 32 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 G3306 across 115 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Remains” 17×
  • “Remain” 15×
  • “Stay” 13×
  • “Abides” 6×
  • “He stayed” 5×
  • “Abide” 3×
  • “Continue” 3×
  • “Endures” 3×
  • “Should remain” 3×
  • “Stayed” 3×
  • “He remains” 2×
  • “Permanent” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 36 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 2 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders G3306 across 129 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Remain” 25×
  • “Remains” 23×
  • “Remaining” 10×
  • “Stay” 10×
  • “He remains” 5×
  • “He stayed” 5×
  • “Remained” 4×
  • “Does” 3×
  • “Endures” 3×
  • “Let him remain” 2×
  • “Stayed” 2×
  • “They stayed” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 31 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


7 senses in Thayer's, in lexicon order

The 7 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.

  1. in reference to place
  2. to continue to be present 1a
  3. to be held, kept, continually
  4. in reference to time
  5. of persons, to survive, live
  6. in reference to state or condition
  7. to wait for, await one

Word origin

Origin: a root word

Part of speech: Verb TDNT: 13:34,6

A primary verb; to stay (in a given place state relation or expectancy): - abide continue dwell endure be present remain stand tarry (for) X thine own.

— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.


Forms in the corpus

The 32 distinct written forms G3306 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
μένει ménei Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular John 1:40 28
ἔμεινεν émeinen Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 11:23 8
μένων ménōn Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine John 14:10 7
μένετε ménete Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Mark 6:10 6
μείνῃ meínē Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular John 12:46 6
μεῖναι meînai Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive Luke 19:5 6
μένειν ménein Verb, Present, Active, Infinitive John 21:22 5
μένουσαν ménousan Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Feminine John 6:27 5
μείνατε meínate Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Matthew 10:11 5
μενέτω menétō Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular 1 Corinthians 7:11 5
μένῃ ménē Verb, Present, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular John 15:4 4
μένον ménon Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Neuter Acts 5:4 3
μείνωσιν meínōsin Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural Acts 27:31 3
ἔμενεν émenen Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 8:27 3
μένουσιν ménousin Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 20:23 2
μείνητε meínēte Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural John 8:31 2
μενεῖτε meneîte Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural John 15:10 2
ἐμείναμεν emeínamen Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural Acts 21:7 2
ἔμειναν émeinan Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural John 1:40 2
μένε méne Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular 2 Timothy 3:14 1
μένεις méneis Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular John 1:39 1
μένητε ménēte Verb, Present, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural John 15:4 1
μένομεν ménomen Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural 1 John 4:13 1
μένοντα ménonta Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Masculine John 5:38 1
μένοντος ménontos Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine 1 Peter 1:23 1
μένω ménō Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular John 15:10 1
μεμενήκεισαν memenḗkeisan Verb, Pluperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 1 John 2:19 1
μενεῖ meneî Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 Corinthians 3:14 1
μενῶ menō̂ Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Philippians 1:25 1
μεῖνον meînon Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular Luke 24:29 1
ἔμενον émenon Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 20:5 1
Ἔμεινεν Émeinen Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 1:56 1

Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G3306, 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.

Derived from this word

Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint usage

The same Greek word μενω appears 52 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 52 verses in 15 books.

52
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
52
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
15 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 15 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3306) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 52. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.

These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3306) 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

Comparing translations? Open the Compare panel on any verse page to stack up to four side by side.