ἁγνίζω
unclean
‘unclean’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where G48 appears in the Book of James — 1 distinct verse. 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.
James
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.
The Greek verb αγνιζω centers on the idea of “unclean.” Debuting at John 11:55, it then recurs through the corpus. It appears 7 verses across 5 books of the Greek New Testament, among its uncommon vocabulary. The word gravitates to Acts (43%), then John and James. Thayer's distinguishes 2 senses for it. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G48 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 5 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 5 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,358
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,358 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 7 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 7 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 3 verses · 43%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 3 verses · 43%
- Johannine 2 verses · 29%
- Gospels 1 verse · 14%
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: Purify 2×
- American Standard Version: Purify 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Purify 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Be purified 1×, Having been cleansed 1×, Having been purified 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G48 across 7 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G48 across 7 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G48 across 7 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 G48 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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.
- ceremonially
- morally
Word origin
Derived from αγνος (hagnós) (G53) — sacred.
From G53 ; to make clean that is (figuratively) sanctify (ceremonially or morally): - purity (self).
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms G48 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἁγνίζει hagnízei | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | 1 John 3:3 | 1 |
| ἁγνίσατε hagnísate | Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural | James 4:8 | 1 |
| ἁγνίσθητι hagnísthēti | Verb, Aorist, Passive, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular | Acts 21:24 | 1 |
| ἁγνίσωσιν hagnísōsin | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural | John 11:55 | 1 |
| ἁγνισθεὶς hagnistheìs | Verb, Aorist, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Acts 21:26 | 1 |
| ἡγνικότες hēgnikótes | Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | 1 Peter 1:22 | 1 |
| ἡγνισμένον hēgnisménon | Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Acts 24:18 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G48, 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 → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αγνιζω appears 29 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 25 verses in 8 books.
- 29
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 25
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 19:10 ἁγνίζω
- Numbers 6:3 ἁγνίζω
- Joshua 3:5 ἁγνίζω
- 1 Samuel 21:6 ἁγνίζω
- 1 Chronicles 15:12 ἁγνίζω
- 2 Chronicles 29:5 ἁγνίζω
- Isaiah 66:17 ἁγνίζω
- Jeremiah 12:3 ἁγνίζω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G48) 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.
- Exodus 19:10 ἁγνίζω Yahweh said to Moses, "Go to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments,
- Numbers 6:3 ἁγνίζω he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of fermented drink, neither shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried.
- Numbers 8:21 ἁγνίζω The Levites purified themselves from sin, and they washed their clothes; and Aaron offered them for a wave offering before Yahweh; and Aaron made atonement for them to cleanse them.
- Numbers 11:18 ἁγνίζω Say you to the people, Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and you shall eat flesh; for you have wept in the ears of Yahweh, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore Yahweh will give you flesh, and you shall eat.
- Numbers 19:12 ἁγνίζω the same shall purify himself therewith on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he doesn't purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
- Numbers 31:19 ἁγνίζω Encamp you outside of the camp seven days: whoever has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day, you and your captives.
- Numbers 31:23 ἁγνίζω everything that may abide the fire, you shall make to go through the fire, and it shall be clean; nevertheless it shall be purified with the water for impurity: and all that doesn't withstand the fire you shall make to go through the water.
- Joshua 3:5 ἁγνίζω Joshua said to the people, Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow Yahweh will do wonders among you.
- 1 Samuel 21:6 ἁγνίζω So the priest gave him holy [bread]; for there was no bread there but the show bread, that was taken from before Yahweh, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.
- 1 Chronicles 15:12 ἁγνίζω and said to them, You are the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both you and your brothers, that you may bring up the ark of Yahweh, the God of Israel, to [the place] that I have prepared for it.
- 1 Chronicles 15:14 ἁγνίζω So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 29:5 ἁγνίζω and said to them, Hear me, you Levites; now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.
- 2 Chronicles 29:15 ἁγνίζω They gathered their brothers, and sanctified themselves, and went in, according to the commandment of the king by the words of Yahweh, to cleanse the house of Yahweh.
- 2 Chronicles 29:16 ἁγνίζω The priests went in to the inner part of the house of Yahweh, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of Yahweh into the court of the house of Yahweh. The Levites took it, to carry it out abroad to the brook Kidron.
- 2 Chronicles 29:17 ἁγνίζω Now they began on the first [day] of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of Yahweh; and they sanctified the house of Yahweh in eight days: and on the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end.
- 2 Chronicles 29:18 ἁγνίζω Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within [the palace], and said, We have cleansed all the house of Yahweh, and the altar of burnt offering, with all the vessels of it, and the table of show bread, with all the vessels of it.
- 2 Chronicles 29:19 ἁγνίζω Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away when he trespassed, have we prepared and sanctified; and, behold, they are before the altar of Yahweh.
- 2 Chronicles 29:34 ἁγνίζω But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: therefore their brothers the Levites helped them, until the work was ended, and until the priests had sanctified themselves; for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests.
- 2 Chronicles 30:3 ἁγνίζω For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 30:15 ἁγνίζω Then they killed the Passover on the fourteenth [day] of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt offerings into the house of Yahweh.
- 2 Chronicles 30:17 ἁγνίζω For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves: therefore the Levites had the charge of killing the Passovers for everyone who was not clean, to sanctify them to Yahweh.
- 2 Chronicles 30:18 ἁγνίζω For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the Passover otherwise than it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, The good Yahweh pardon everyone
- 2 Chronicles 31:18 ἁγνίζω and those who were reckoned by genealogy of all their little ones, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation: for in their office of trust they sanctified themselves in holiness.
- Isaiah 66:17 ἁγνίζω Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves [to go] to the gardens, behind one in the midst, eating pig's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, they shall come to an end together, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 12:3 ἁγνίζω But you, Yahweh, know me; you see me, and try my heart toward you: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G48) 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.
