ψεύδομαι
to lie
‘to lie’ 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
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
Voice
- Middle or Passive deponent
- Middle/passive in form but active in meaning.
- Middle deponent
- Middle in form but active in meaning.
- Middle or Passive
- A form that may be middle or passive — resolved by context.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G5574 appears in the Book of Hebrews — 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.
Hebrews
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, ψευδομαι (pseúdomai) means “to lie.” It first appears in Matthew 5:11. It turns up in 12 verses across 11 books, an uncommon footprint. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. It clusters with ψευδης, ψευδος and ψευσμα under a shared root. Dig into 12-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G5574 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 →
- 12
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 12 distinct verses.
- 11 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 11 of 27 New Testament books.
- #904
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 904 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 12 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 12 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 5 verses · 42%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 2 verses · 17%
- Johannine 2 verses · 17%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 2 verses · 17%
- Gospels 1 verse · 8%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 8%
- Revelation 1 verse · 8%
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: Lie 5×, I lie 2×
- American Standard Version: I lie 3×, Lie 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Lie 3×, I am not lying 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lie 5×, Lying 5×, I am 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G5574 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 G5574 across 11 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 G5574 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 G5574 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 lie, to speak deliberate falsehoods
- to deceive one by a lie, to lie to
Word origin
Origin: middle voice of an apparently primary verb
Middle voice of an apparently primary verb; to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood : - falsely lie.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G5574 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ψεύδομαι pseúdomai | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | Romans 9:1 | 4 |
| ψεύδεσθε pseúdesthe | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural | Colossians 3:9 | 2 |
| ψευδόμεθα pseudómetha | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Plural | 1 John 1:6 | 1 |
| ψευδόμενοι pseudómenoi | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Matthew 5:11 | 1 |
| ψεύδονται pseúdontai | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Revelation 3:9 | 1 |
| ψεύσασθαί pseúsasthaí | Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Infinitive | Acts 5:3 | 1 |
| ψεύσασθαι pseúsasthai | Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Infinitive | Hebrews 6:18 | 1 |
| ἐψεύσω epseúsō | Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular | Acts 5:4 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G5574, 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
- ψευδης pseudḗs G5571 false
- ψευδος pseûdos G5579 lie
- ψευσμα pseûsma G5582 falsehood
- ψευστης pseústēs G5583 liar
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word ψευδομαι appears 28 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 28 verses in 14 books.
- 28
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 28
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Leviticus 5:21 ψεύδω
- Deuteronomy 33:29 ψεύδω
- Joshua 24:27 ψεύδω
- 2 Samuel 22:45 ψεύδω
- 1 Kings 13:18 ψεύδομαι
- Ezra 16:8 ψεύδω
- Job 6:10 ψεύδω
- Psalms 17:45 ψεύδομαι
- Proverbs 14:5 ψεύδω
- Isaiah 57:11 ψεύδω
- Jeremiah 5:12 ψεύδω
- Hosea 9:2 ψεύδω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G5574) 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.
- Leviticus 5:21 ψεύδω
- Leviticus 5:22 ψεύδω
- Leviticus 19:11 ψεύδω "'You shall not steal; neither shall you deal falsely, nor lie to one another.
- Deuteronomy 33:29 ψεύδω Happy are you, Israel: Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh, The shield of your help, The sword of your excellency! Your enemies shall submit themselves to you; You shall tread on their high places.
- Joshua 24:27 ψεύδω Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of Yahweh which he spoke to us: it shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God.
- 2 Samuel 22:45 ψεύδω The foreigners shall submit themselves to me: As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me.
- 1 Kings 13:18 ψεύδομαι He said to him, I also am a prophet as you are; and an angel spoke to me by the word of Yahweh, saying, Bring him back with you into your house, that he may eat bread and drink water. [But] he lied to him.
- Ezra 16:8 ψεύδω
- Job 6:10 ψεύδω Be it still my consolation, Yes, let me exult in pain that doesn't spare, That I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
- Job 6:28 ψεύδω Now therefore be pleased to look at me, For surely I shall not lie to your face.
- Job 8:18 ψεύδω If he is destroyed from his place, Then it shall deny him, saying, 'I have not seen you.'
- Job 27:11 ψεύδω I will teach you about the hand of God. That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.
- Job 31:28 ψεύδω This also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges; For I should have denied the God who is above.
- Job 34:6 ψεύδω Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar; My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.'
- Psalms 17:45 ψεύδομαι
- Psalms 26:12 ψεύδομαι My foot stands in an even place. In the congregations I will bless Yahweh.
- Psalms 61:5 ψεύδομαι For you, God, have heard my vows. You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
- Psalms 65:3 ψεύδομαι Sins overwhelmed me, But you atoned for our transgressions.
- Psalms 77:36 ψεύδομαι
- Psalms 80:16 ψεύδομαι It's burned with fire. It's cut down. They perish at your rebuke.
- Psalms 88:36 ψεύδομαι
- Proverbs 14:5 ψεύδω A truthful witness will not lie, But a false witness pours out lies.
- Isaiah 57:11 ψεύδω Of whom have you been afraid and in fear, that you lie, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart? Haven't I held my peace even of long time, and you don't fear me?
- Isaiah 59:13 ψεύδω transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
- Jeremiah 5:12 ψεύδω They have denied Yahweh, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine:
- Hosea 9:2 ψεύδω The threshing floor and the winepress won't feed them, And the new wine will fail her.
- Habakkuk 3:17 ψεύδω For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, Nor fruit be in the vines; The labor of the olive fails, The fields yield no food; The flocks are cut off from the fold, And there is no herd in the stalls:
- Zechariah 13:4 ψεύδω It will happen in that day, that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision, when he prophesies; neither will they wear a hairy mantle to deceive:
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G5574) 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.
