πλοῖον
ship
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Accusative-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
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
3 verses where G4143 appears in the Dative case in the Book of Matthew. 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.
Matthew
- Matthew 4:21 πλοίῳ n dat sg neut Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them.
- Matthew 14:13 πλοίῳ n dat sg neut Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat, to a deserted place apart. When the multitudes heard it, they followed him on foot from the cities.
- Matthew 14:33 πλοίῳ n dat sg neut Those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, "You are truly the Son of God!"
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.
At its core, πλοιον (ploîon) means “ship.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “ship” in the King James Version, “boat” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It appears 61 verses across 7 books of the Greek New Testament, among its moderately common vocabulary. The word gravitates to Acts (31%), then Mark and Matthew. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 4:21. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4143 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 →
- 61
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 61 distinct verses.
- 7 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 7 of 27 New Testament books.
- #251
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 251 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 61 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 61 distinct verses.
- Gospels 39 verses · 64%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 24 verses · 39%
- Johannine 8 verses · 13%
- Revelation 2 verses · 3%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 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: Ship 57×, Ships 8×
- American Standard Version: Boat 40×, Ship 17×, Boats 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Boat 39×, Ship 16×, Boats 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Boat 40×, Ship 19×, Boats 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4143 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4143 across 67 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4143 across 64 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 3 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4143 across 70 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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.
- a ship
Word origin
Derived from πλεω (pléō) (G4126) — to sail.
From G4126 ; a sailer that is vessel : - ship (-ping).
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G4143 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| πλοῖον ploîon | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 4:22 | 33 |
| πλοίῳ ploíō | Noun, Dative, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 4:21 | 15 |
| πλοίου ploíou | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 14:29 | 11 |
| πλοῖα ploîa | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter | Luke 5:7 | 5 |
| πλοίων ploíōn | Noun, Genitive, Plural, Neuter | Luke 5:3 | 2 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4143, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word πλοιον appears 30 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 27 verses in 10 books.
- 30
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 27
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 49:13 πλοῖον
- Deuteronomy 28:68 πλοῖον
- Judges 5:17 πλοῖον
- 2 Chronicles 8:18 πλοῖον
- Job 40:31 πλοῖον
- Psalms 47:8 πλοῖον
- Isaiah 2:16 πλοῖον
- Ezekiel 27:9 πλοῖον
- Daniel 11:40 πλοῖον
- Jonah 1:3 πλοῖον
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4143) 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 49:13 πλοῖον "Zebulun will dwell at the haven of the sea. He will be for a haven of ships. His border will be on Sidon.
- Deuteronomy 28:68 πλοῖον Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I said to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall sell yourselves to your enemies for bondservants and for bondmaids, and no man shall buy you.
- Judges 5:17 πλοῖον Gilead abode beyond the Jordan: Dan, why did he remain in ships? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, Abode by his creeks.
- 2 Chronicles 8:18 πλοῖον Huram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants who had knowledge of the sea; and they came with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and fetched from there four hundred fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king Solomon.
- 2 Chronicles 9:21 πλοῖον For the king had ships that went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram; once every three years came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
- 2 Chronicles 20:36 πλοῖον and he joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish; and they made the ships in Ezion Geber.
- 2 Chronicles 20:37 πλοῖον Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because you have joined yourself with Ahaziah, Yahweh has destroyed your works. The ships were broken, so that they were not able to go to Tarshish.
- Job 40:31 πλοῖον
- Psalms 47:8 πλοῖον God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.
- Psalms 103:26 πλοῖον
- Psalms 106:23 πλοῖον Therefore he said that he would destroy them, Had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, To turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn't destroy them.
- Isaiah 2:16 πλοῖον For all the ships of Tarshish, And for all pleasant imagery.
- Isaiah 11:14 πλοῖον They shall fly down on the shoulder of the Philistines on the west; together shall they despoil the children of the east: they shall put forth their hand on Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
- Isaiah 18:1 πλοῖον Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;
- Isaiah 23:1 πλοῖον The burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Kittim it is revealed to them.
- Isaiah 23:10 πλοῖον Pass through your land as the Nile, daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint any more.
- Isaiah 23:14 πλοῖον Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste.
- Isaiah 33:21 πλοῖον But there Yahweh will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams, in which shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.
- Isaiah 43:14 πλοῖον Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing.
- Isaiah 60:9 πλοῖον Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, for the name of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.
- Ezekiel 27:9 πλοῖον The old men of Gebal and the wise men of it were in you your repairers of ship seams: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in you to deal in your merchandise.
- Ezekiel 27:25 πλοῖον The ships of Tarshish were your caravans for your merchandise: and you were replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas.
- Ezekiel 27:29 πλοῖον All who handled the oar, the mariners, [and] all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships; they shall stand on the land,
- Daniel 11:40 πλοῖον At the time of the end shall the king of the south contend with him; and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass through.
- Jonah 1:3 πλοῖον But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh.
- Jonah 1:4 πλοῖον But Yahweh sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was likely to break up.
- Jonah 1:5 πλοῖον Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost parts of the ship, and he was laying down, and was fast asleep.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4143) 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.
