ἀπολογέομαι
to defend
‘to defend’ is one of 3 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).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
Voice
- Middle or Passive deponent
- Middle/passive in form but active in meaning.
- Middle deponent
- Middle in form but active in meaning.
- Passive deponent
- Passive in form but active in meaning.
Mood
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Infinitive 2 times (20%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine 2 times (20%)
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Infinitive 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Imperfect, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 1 time (10%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G626 appears — 10 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.
Luke 2 verses
- Luke 12:11 ἀπολογήσησθε aor mid.dep subj 2pl When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, don't be anxious how or what you will answer, or what you will say;
- Luke 21:14 ἀπολογηθῆναι aor pass.dep inf Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,
Acts 6 verses
- Acts 19:33 ἀπολογεῖσθαι pres mid/pass.dep inf They brought Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. Alexander beckoned with his hand, and would have made a defense to the people.
- Acts 24:10 ἀπολογοῦμαι pres mid/pass.dep ind 1sg When the governor had beckoned to him to speak, Paul answered, "Because I know that you have been a judge of this nation for many years, I cheerfully make my defense,
- Acts 25:8 ἀπολογουμένου pres mid/pass.dep ptcp gen sg masc while he said in his defense, "Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar, have I sinned at all."
- Acts 26:1 ἀπελογεῖτο impf mid/pass.dep ind 3sg Agrippa said to Paul, "You may speak for yourself." Then Paul stretched out his hand, and made his defense.
- Acts 26:2 ἀπολογεῖσθαι pres mid/pass.dep inf "I think myself happy, King Agrippa, that I am to make my defense before you this day concerning all the things that I am accused by the Jews,
- Acts 26:24 ἀπολογουμένου pres mid/pass.dep ptcp gen sg masc As he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning is driving you insane!"
Romans 1 verse
2 Corinthians 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.
The Greek verb απολογεομαι centers on the idea of “to defend.” Acts dominates its distribution — 6 of 10 verses. Spanning 10 verses in 4 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. Its earliest occurrence is Luke 12:11. Lexicons map it across 3 senses. Dig into 10-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G626 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,056
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,056 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 8 verses · 80%
- Gospels 2 verses · 20%
- Pauline corpus 2 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: Ye shall answer 2×
- American Standard Version: How to answer 1×, Made a defense 1×, Made his defence 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Began his defense 1×, Could make defense 1×, Defend myself 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: As 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G626 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 G626 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G626 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G626 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 3 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 defend one's self, make one's defence
- to defend a person or a thing
- to give a full account of
Word origin
Derived from απο (apó) (G575) — from.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G626 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀπολογεῖσθαι apologeîsthai | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Infinitive | Acts 19:33 | 2 |
| ἀπολογουμένου apologouménou | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | Acts 25:8 | 2 |
| ἀπελογεῖτο apelogeîto | Verb, Imperfect, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 26:1 | 1 |
| ἀπολογήσησθε apologḗsēsthe | Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural | Luke 12:11 | 1 |
| ἀπολογηθῆναι apologēthē̂nai | Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Infinitive | Luke 21:14 | 1 |
| ἀπολογουμένων apologouménōn | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Romans 2:15 | 1 |
| ἀπολογούμεθα apologoúmetha | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Plural | 2 Corinthians 12:19 | 1 |
| ἀπολογοῦμαι apologoûmai | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | Acts 24:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G626, 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
- απαγγελλω apangéllō G518 to report
- απαγχομαι apánchomai G519 to strangle
- απαγω apágō G520 to lead away
- απαιρω apaírō G522 to take away
- απαιτεω apaitéō G523 to demand back
- απαλγεω apalgéō G524 to cease grieving
- απαλλασσω apallássō G525 to depart
- απαλλοτριοω apallotrióō G526 to estrange
- απανταω apantáō G528 to meet
- απαρνεομαι aparnéomai G533 to deny
- απαρτι apárti G534 henceforth
- απαρχη aparchḗ G536 to offer firstfruits
- απαυγασμα apaúgasma G541 brightness
- απειδω apeídō G542 to look away
- απειμι ápeimi G548 to depart
- απειμι ápeimi G549 to depart
- απειπομην apeipómēn G550 to declare
- απεκδεχομαι apekdéchomai G553 waiting for
- απεκδυομαι apekdýomai G554 to despoil
- απελαυνω apelaúnō G556 to drive away
- απελεγμος apelegmós G557 censure
- απελευθερος apeleútheros G558 freedman
- απελπιζω apelpízō G560 not despairing
- απεναντι apénanti G561 opposite
+85 more words share this root (not shown).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 112 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word απολογεομαι appears 2 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 2 verses in 1 book.
- 2
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 2
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Jeremiah 12:1 ἀπολογέομαι
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G626) 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.
- Jeremiah 12:1 ἀπολογέομαι Righteous are you, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet would I reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?
- Jeremiah 38:6 ἀπολογέομαι Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G626) 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.
