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ἀποκτείνω

to kill

‘to kill’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓

G615 Strong's Greek
apokteínō Transliteration
/ap-ok-ti'-no/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 74 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

αποκτεινω (apokteínō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to kill.” Scripture first uses it in Matthew 10:28. Spanning 70 verses in 10 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Greek New Testament. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. Sharing its root, it stands alongside απο, απαγγελλω and απαγχομαι. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
put to death
Modern gloss
to kill
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current Thayer scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's G615 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 →

70
distinct verses
The word appears in 70 distinct verses.
10 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 10 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 10:28
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 10:28.
Revelation 19:21
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Revelation 19:21.
#231
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 231 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 70 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 45 · 64%
  • Acts 6 · 9%
  • Pauline Epistles 5 · 7%
  • General Epistles 0 · 0%
  • Revelation 14 · 20%

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 70 distinct verses.

  • Gospels 45 verses · 64%
  • Johannine 26 verses · 37%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 18 verses · 26%
  • Revelation 14 verses · 20%
  • Pauline corpus 5 verses · 7%

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: Kill 18×, Killed 9×, Be killed 5×
  • American Standard Version: Kill 18×, Killed 9×, Be killed 5×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Kill 25×, Killed 10×, Kills 4×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Kill 17×, Killed 8×, Be killed 7×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G615 across 81 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kill” 18×
  • “Killed” 9×
  • “Be killed” 5×
  • “Death” 5×
  • “Slew” 4×
  • “Killeth” 3×
  • “Let us kill” 3×
  • “Put” 3×
  • “Shall kill” 2×
  • “Slay” 2×
  • “They shall kill” 2×
  • “Were slain” 2×

Plus 23 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 2 further occurrences.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders G615 across 78 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kill” 18×
  • “Killed” 9×
  • “Be killed” 5×
  • “Killeth” 4×
  • “Death” 3×
  • “They shall kill” 3×
  • “Let us kill” 2×
  • “Shall kill” 2×
  • “They killed” 2×
  • “They might put” 2×

Plus 28 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 G615 across 73 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kill” 25×
  • “Killed” 10×
  • “Kills” 4×
  • “Be killed” 3×
  • “He must be killed” 3×
  • “Let us kill” 3×
  • “They will kill” 3×
  • “Were killed” 3×
  • “They killed” 2×
  • “Was killed” 2×

Plus 15 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.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders G615 across 87 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kill” 17×
  • “Killed” 8×
  • “Be killed” 7×
  • “Killing” 5×
  • “They killed” 5×
  • “Death” 4×
  • “They will kill” 4×
  • “Him” 3×
  • “Let us kill” 3×
  • “Put” 3×
  • “Were killed” 3×
  • “Having killed” 2×

Plus 23 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.

  1. to kill in any way whatever
  2. metaph. to extinguish, abolish

Word origin

Derived from απο (apó) (G575) — from.

Part of speech: Verb

From G575 and κτείνω kteinō (to slay ); to kill outright; figuratively to destroy : - put to death kill slay.

— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.


Forms in the corpus

The 22 distinct written forms G615 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
ἀποκτεῖναι apokteînai Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive Matthew 10:28 16
ἀπέκτειναν apékteinan Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 21:35 10
ἀποκτείνωσιν apokteínōsin Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 26:4 8
ἀποκτενοῦσιν apoktenoûsin Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 17:23 6
ἀποκτανθῆναι apoktanthē̂nai Verb, Aorist, Passive, Infinitive Matthew 16:21 5
ἀπεκτάνθησαν apektánthēsan Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Revelation 9:18 4
ἀποκτείνωμεν apokteínōmen Verb, Present, Active, Subjunctive, 1st person, Plural Matthew 21:38 4
ἀποκτενεῖ apokteneî Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular John 8:22 3
ἀπέκτεινεν apékteinen Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 13:4 2
ἀποκτείνας apokteínas Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine John 16:2 2
ἀποκτείνουσα apokteínousa Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine Matthew 23:37 2
ἀποκτεννόντων apoktennóntōn Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine Matthew 10:28 2
ἀπεκτάνθη apektánthē Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Revelation 2:13 1
ἀπεκτείνατε apekteínate Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural Acts 3:15 1
ἀποκτέννει apokténnei Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 Corinthians 3:6 1
ἀποκτέννεσθαι apokténnesthai Verb, Present, Passive, Infinitive Revelation 6:11 1
ἀποκτέννοντες apokténnontes Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Mark 12:5 1
ἀποκτανθεὶς apoktantheìs Verb, Aorist, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Mark 9:31 1
ἀποκτανθῶσιν apoktanthō̂sin Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural Revelation 13:15 1
ἀποκτεινάντων apokteinántōn Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 1 Thessalonians 2:15 1
ἀποκτενεῖτε apokteneîte Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural Matthew 23:34 1
ἀποκτενῶ apoktenō̂ Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Revelation 2:23 1

Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G615, 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

+85 more words share this root (not shown).

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 111 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint usage

The same Greek word αποκτεινω appears 169 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 163 verses in 27 books.

169
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
163
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
27 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 27 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G615) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 163. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.

These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G615) 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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