χήρα
widow
‘widow’ 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 Nominative-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
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- 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.”
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 10 times (38%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine 6 times (23%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine 3 times (12%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine 3 times (12%)
- Noun, Dative, Plural, Feminine 2 times (8%)
- Noun, Genitive, Plural, Feminine 2 times (8%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 26 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G5503 appears — 24 distinct verses across 7 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.
Mark 3 verses
- Mark 12:40 χηρῶν n gen pl fem those who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."
- Mark 12:42 χήρα n nom sg fem A poor widow came, and she cast in two small brass coins, which equal a quadrans coin.
- Mark 12:43 χήρα n nom sg fem He called his disciples to himself, and said to them, "Most assuredly I tell you, this poor widow gave more than all those who are giving into the treasury,
Luke 9 verses
- Luke 2:37 χήρα n nom sg fem and she had been a widow for about eighty-four years), who didn't depart from the temple, worshipping with fastings and petitions night and day.
- Luke 4:25 χῆραι n nom pl fem But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land.
- Luke 4:26 χήραν n acc sg fem Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
- Luke 7:12 χήρα n nom sg fem Now when he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her.
- Luke 18:3 χήρα n nom sg fem A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, 'Defend me from my adversary!'
- Luke 18:5 χήραν n acc sg fem yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.'"
- Luke 20:47 χηρῶν n gen pl fem who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these will receive greater condemnation."
- Luke 21:2 χήραν n acc sg fem He saw a certain poor widow casting in two small brass coins.
- Luke 21:3 χήρα n nom sg fem He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow put in more than all of them,
Acts 3 verses
- Acts 6:1 χῆραι n nom pl fem Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, a complaint arose from the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily service.
- Acts 9:39 χῆραι n nom pl fem Peter got up and went with them. When he had come, they brought him into the upper chamber. All the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them.
- Acts 9:41 χήρας n acc pl fem He gave her his hand, and raised her up. Calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.
1 Corinthians 1 verse
1 Timothy 6 verses
- 1 Timothy 5:3 Χήρας χήρας n acc pl fem n acc pl fem Honor widows who are widows indeed.
- 1 Timothy 5:4 χήρα n nom sg fem But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show piety towards their own family, and to repay their parents, for this is acceptable in the sight of God.
- 1 Timothy 5:5 χήρα n nom sg fem Now she who is a widow indeed, and desolate, has her hope set on God, and continues in petitions and prayers night and day.
- 1 Timothy 5:9 Χήρα n nom sg fem Let no one be enrolled as a widow under sixty years old, having been the wife of one man,
- 1 Timothy 5:11 χήρας n acc pl fem But refuse younger widows, for when they have grown wanton against Christ, they desire to marry;
- 1 Timothy 5:16 χήρας χήραις n acc pl fem n dat pl fem If any man or woman who believes has widows, let them relieve them, and don't let the assembly be burdened; that it might relieve those who are widows indeed.
James 1 verse
Revelation 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.
“widow” is the headline sense of the Greek noun χηρα (chḗra). Scripture first uses it in Mark 12:40. With 24 verses in 7 books, it is an uncommon word in the Greek New Testament. It concentrates in Luke, which alone accounts for 38% of its uses. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. See the sense tree, 24-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G5503 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 →
- 24
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 24 distinct verses.
- 7 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 7 of 27 New Testament books.
- #513
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 513 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 24 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 24 distinct verses.
- Gospels 12 verses · 50%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 12 verses · 50%
- Pauline corpus 7 verses · 29%
- Johannine 1 verse · 4%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 4%
- Revelation 1 verse · 4%
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: Widow 10×, Widows 9×, Widows' 3×
- American Standard Version: Widows 13×, Widow 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: Widows 13×, Widow 12×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Widows 14×, Widow 12×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G5503 across 27 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G5503 across 25 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 G5503 across 25 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G5503 across 28 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.
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.
- a widow
- metaph. a city stripped of its inhabitants and riches is represented under the figure of a widow
Word origin
Derived from χασμα (chásma) (G5490) — chasm.
Feminine of a presumed derivation apparently from the base of G5490 through the idea of deficiency ; a widow (as lacking a husband) literally or figuratively : - widow.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G5503 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| χήρα chḗra | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Mark 12:42 | 9 |
| χήρας chḗras | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine | Acts 9:41 | 5 |
| χήραν chḗran | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine | Luke 4:26 | 3 |
| χῆραι chē̂rai | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine | Luke 4:25 | 3 |
| χήραις chḗrais | Noun, Dative, Plural, Feminine | 1 Corinthians 7:8 | 2 |
| χηρῶν chērō̂n | Noun, Genitive, Plural, Feminine | Mark 12:40 | 2 |
| Χήρα Chḗra | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | 1 Timothy 5:9 | 1 |
| Χήρας Chḗras | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine | 1 Timothy 5:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G5503, 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
- κητος kētos G2785 sea monster
- χαλαω chaláō G5465 to relax
- χαμαι chamaí G5476 to the ground
- χειλος cheîlos G5491 lip
- χειμων cheimṓn G5494 winter
- χιων chiṓn G5510 snow
- χωρα chṓra G5561 region
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word χηρα appears 56 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 54 verses in 16 books.
- 56
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 54
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 16 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 16 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 38:11 χήρα
- Exodus 22:21 χήρα
- Leviticus 21:14 χήρα
- Numbers 30:10 χήρα
- Deuteronomy 10:18 χήρα
- 2 Samuel 14:5 χήρα
- 1 Kings 7:2 χήρα
- Job 22:9 χήρα
- Psalms 67:6 χήρα
- Proverbs 15:25 χήρα
- Isaiah 1:17 χήρα
- Jeremiah 5:28 χήρα
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G5503) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 54. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 38:11 χήρα Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, "Remain a widow in your father's house, until Shelah, my son, is grown up;" for he said, "Lest he also die, like his brothers." Tamar went and lived in her father's house.
- Exodus 22:21 χήρα "You shall not wrong an alien, neither shall you oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 22:23 χήρα If you take advantage of them at all, and they cry at all to me, I will surely hear their cry;
- Leviticus 21:14 χήρα A widow, or one divorced, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry: but a virgin of his own people shall he take as a wife.
- Leviticus 22:13 χήρα But if a priest's daughter is a widow, or divorced, and has no child, and has returned to her father's house, as in her youth, she may eat of her father's bread: but no stranger shall eat any of it.
- Numbers 30:10 χήρα If she vowed in her husband's house, or bound her soul by a bond with an oath,
- Deuteronomy 10:18 χήρα He does execute justice for the fatherless and widow, and loves the foreigner, in giving him food and clothing.
- Deuteronomy 14:29 χήρα and the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the foreigner living among you, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
- Deuteronomy 16:11 χήρα and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your man-servant, and your maid-servant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in the midst of you, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.
- Deuteronomy 16:14 χήρα and you shall rejoice in your feast, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your man-servant, and your maid-servant, and the Levite, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates.
- Deuteronomy 24:17 χήρα You shall not wrest the justice [due] to the foreigner, [or] to the fatherless, nor take the widow's clothing to pledge;
- Deuteronomy 24:19 χήρα When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgot a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it: it shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow; that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
- Deuteronomy 24:20 χήρα When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.
- Deuteronomy 24:21 χήρα When you gather [the grapes of] your vineyard, you shall not glean it after you: it shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.
- Deuteronomy 26:12 χήρα When you have made an end of tithing all the tithe of your increase in the third year, which is the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within your gates, and be filled.
- Deuteronomy 26:13 χήρα You shall say before Yahweh your God, I have put away the holy things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, and to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandment which you have commanded me: I have not transgressed any of your commandments, neither have I forgotten them:
- Deuteronomy 27:19 χήρα Cursed be he who wrests the justice [due] to the foreigner, fatherless, and widow. All the people shall say, Amen.
- 2 Samuel 14:5 χήρα The king said to her, What ails you? She answered, Of a truth I am a widow, and my husband is dead.
- 2 Samuel 20:3 χήρα David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in custody, and provided them with sustenance, but didn't go in to them. So they were shut up to the day of their death, living in widowhood.
- 1 Kings 7:2 χήρα For he built the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length of it was one hundred cubits, and the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits, on four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on the pillars.
- 1 Kings 11:26 χήρα Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother's name was Zeruah, a widow, he also lifted up his hand against the king.
- 1 Kings 17:9 χήρα Arise, get you to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you.
- 1 Kings 17:10 χήρα So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks: and he called to her, and said, Please get me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
- 1 Kings 17:20 χήρα He cried to Yahweh, and said, Yahweh my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?
- Job 22:9 χήρα You have sent widows away empty, And the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
- Job 24:3 χήρα They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, And they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
- Job 27:15 χήρα Those who remain of him shall be buried in death. His widows shall make no lamentation.
- Job 29:13 χήρα The blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
- Job 31:16 χήρα "If I have withheld the poor from their desire, Or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
- Psalms 67:6 χήρα The earth has yielded its increase. God, even our own God, will bless us.
- Psalms 77:64 χήρα
- Psalms 93:6 χήρα
- Psalms 108:9 χήρα Moab is my wash pot. I will toss my sandal on Edom. I will shout over Philistia."
- Psalms 145:9 χήρα Yahweh is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
- Proverbs 15:25 χήρα Yahweh will uproot the house of the proud, But he will keep the widow's borders intact.
- Isaiah 1:17 χήρα Learn to do well. Seek justice, Relieve the oppressed, Judge the fatherless, Plead for the widow."
- Isaiah 1:23 χήρα Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They don't judge the fatherless, Neither does the cause of the widow come to them.
- Isaiah 9:16 χήρα For those who lead this people cause them to err; and those who are led of them are destroyed.
- Isaiah 10:2 χήρα to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
- Isaiah 47:8 χήρα Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:
- Isaiah 49:21 χήρα Then shall you say in your heart, Who has conceived these for me, seeing I have been bereaved of my children, and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?
- Jeremiah 5:28 χήρα They are grew fat, they shine: yes, they overpass in deeds of wickedness; they don't plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and the right of the needy they don't judge.
- Jeremiah 7:6 χήρα if you don't oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:
- Jeremiah 15:8 χήρα Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.
- Jeremiah 18:21 χήρα Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, [and] their young men struck of the sword in battle.
- Jeremiah 22:3 χήρα Thus says Yahweh: Execute you justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place.
- Jeremiah 30:5 χήρα For thus says Yahweh: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
- Lamentations 1:1 χήρα How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
- Lamentations 5:3 χήρα We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
- Ezekiel 22:7 χήρα In you have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of you have they dealt by oppression with the foreigner; in you have they wronged the fatherless and the widow.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G5503) 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.
