προσδοκάω
to expect
‘to expect’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
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
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
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”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural 4 times (25%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 3 times (19%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 3 times (19%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine 1 time (6%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 16 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G4328 appears — 15 distinct verses across 4 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
Luke 6 verses
- Luke 1:21 προσδοκῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc The people were waiting for Zacharias, and they marveled that he delayed in the temple.
- Luke 3:15 Προσδοκῶντος pres act ptcp gen sg masc As the people were in expectation, and all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he was the Christ,
- Luke 7:19 προσδοκῶμεν pres act ind 1pl John, calling to himself two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, "Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for another?"
- Luke 7:20 προσδοκῶμεν pres act ind 1pl When the men had come to him, they said, "John the Baptizer has sent us to you, saying, 'Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?'"
- Luke 8:40 προσδοκῶντες pres act ptcp nom pl masc It happened, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.
- Luke 12:46 προσδοκᾷ pres act ind 3sg then the lord of that servant will come in a day when he isn't expecting him, and in an hour that he doesn't know, and will cut him in two, and place his portion with the unfaithful.
Acts 4 verses
- Acts 3:5 προσδοκῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc He listened to them, expecting to receive something from them.
- Acts 10:24 προσδοκῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc On the next day they entered into Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for them, having called together his relatives and his near friends.
- Acts 27:33 προσδοκῶντες pres act ptcp nom pl masc While the day was coming on, Paul begged them all to take some food, saying, "This day is the fourteenth day that you wait and continue fasting, having taken nothing.
- Acts 28:6 προσεδόκων προσδοκώντων impf act ind 3pl pres act ptcp gen pl masc But they expected that he would have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but when they watched for a long time and saw nothing bad happen to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.
2 Peter 3 verses
- 2 Peter 3:12 προσδοκῶντας pres act ptcp acc pl masc looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
- 2 Peter 3:13 προσδοκῶμεν pres act ind 1pl But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness.
- 2 Peter 3:14 προσδοκῶντες pres act ptcp nom pl masc Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found in peace, without blemish and blameless in his sight.
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 expect” is the headline sense of the Greek verb προσδοκαω (prosdokáō). Scripture first uses it in Matthew 11:3. With 15 verses in 4 books, it is an uncommon word in the Greek New Testament. It concentrates in Luke, which alone accounts for 40% of its uses. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. See the sense tree, 15-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4328 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #726
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 726 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 15 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 15 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 10 verses · 67%
- Gospels 8 verses · 53%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 3 verses · 20%
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: He looketh 2×, Look we for 2×
- American Standard Version: He expecteth 2×, Look we for 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Should we look for 3×, Expecting 2×, He does not expect 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Should we expect 3×, Waiting for 3×, Expect 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4328 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4328 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 1 further occurrence.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4328 across 16 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 G4328 across 19 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.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 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.
- to expect (whether in thought, in hope, or in fear)
- to look for, wait for
Word origin
Derived from προς (prós) (G4314).
From G4314 and δοκεύω dokeuō (to watch ); to anticipate (in thought hope or fear); by implication to await : - (be in) expect (-ation) look (for) when looked tarry wait for.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G4328 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| προσδοκῶμεν prosdokō̂men | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural | Matthew 11:3 | 4 |
| προσδοκῶν prosdokō̂n | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 1:21 | 3 |
| προσδοκῶντες prosdokō̂ntes | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Luke 8:40 | 3 |
| προσδοκᾷ prosdokâ | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 24:50 | 2 |
| Προσδοκῶντος Prosdokō̂ntos | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | Luke 3:15 | 1 |
| προσδοκώντων prosdokṓntōn | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Acts 28:6 | 1 |
| προσδοκῶντας prosdokō̂ntas | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine | 2 Peter 3:12 | 1 |
| προσεδόκων prosedókōn | Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Acts 28:6 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4328, 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
- προσαγορευω prosagoreúō G4316 to address
- προσαγω proságō G4317 to bring
- προσαιτεω prosaitéō G4319 to ask alms
- προσαναβαινω prosanabaínō G4320 to go up higher
- προσαναλισκω prosanalískō G4321 to spend additionally
- προσαναπληροω prosanaplēróō G4322 to fill up
- προσανατιθημι prosanatíthēmi G4323 to lay upon
- προσαπειλεω prosapeiléō G4324 to threaten further
- προσδαπαναω prosdapanáō G4325 to spend besides
- προσδεομαι prosdéomai G4326 to need additionally
- προσδεχομαι prosdéchomai G4327 to receive to oneself
- προσεαω proseáō G4330 to permit approach
- προσεγγιζω prosengízō G4331 to approach
- προσεδρευω prosedreúō G4332 to sit near
- προσεργαζομαι prosergázomai G4333 to work besides
- προσερχομαι prosérchomai G4334 to draw near
- προσευχομαι proseúchomai G4336 to pray
- προσεχω proséchō G4337 to attend to
- προσηλοω prosēlóō G4338 to nail to
- προσκαιρος próskairos G4340 temporary
- προσκαλεομαι proskaléomai G4341 to call to
- προσκαρτερεω proskarteréō G4342 to adhere to
- προσκεφαλαιον proskephálaion G4344 pillow
- προσκληροω prosklēróō G4345 to allot
+27 more words share this root (not shown).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 54 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word προσδοκαω appears 5 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 5 verses in 3 books.
- 5
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 5
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Deuteronomy 32:2 προςδοκάω
- Psalms 68:21 προςδοκάω
- Lamentations 2:16 προςδοκάω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4328) 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.
- Deuteronomy 32:2 προςδοκάω My doctrine shall drop as the rain; My speech shall condense as the dew, As the small rain on the tender grass, As the showers on the herb.
- Psalms 68:21 προςδοκάω But God will strike through the head of his enemies, The hairy scalp of such a one as still continues in his guiltiness.
- Psalms 103:27 προςδοκάω
- Psalms 118:166 προςδοκάω
- Lamentations 2:16 προςδοκάω All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4328) 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.
