ἀρνέομαι
to deny
‘to deny’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Aorist-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
- 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).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
Voice
- Middle deponent
- Middle in form but active in meaning.
- Middle or Passive deponent
- Middle/passive in form but active in meaning.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms 21 distinct
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 8 times (24%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 3 times (9%)
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural 2 times (6%)
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular 2 times (6%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 2 times (6%)
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (3%)
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (3%)
- Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Infinitive 1 time (3%)
+13 more forms (13 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 33 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G720 appears — 30 distinct verses across 13 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.
Matthew 3 verses
- Matthew 10:33 ἀρνήσηταί ἀρνήσομαι aor mid.dep subj 3sg fut mid.dep ind 1sg But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.
- Matthew 26:70 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg But he denied it before them all, saying, "I don't know what you are talking about."
- Matthew 26:72 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg Again he denied it with an oath, "I don't know the man."
Mark 2 verses
- Mark 14:68 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg But he denied it, saying, "I neither know, nor understand what you are saying." He went out on the porch, and the rooster crowed.
- Mark 14:70 ἠρνεῖτο impf mid/pass.dep ind 3sg But he again denied it. After a little while again those who stood by said to Peter, "You truly are one of them, for you are a Galilean, and your speech shows it."
Luke 4 verses
- Luke 8:45 ἀρνουμένων pres mid/pass.dep ptcp gen pl masc Jesus said, "Who touched me?" When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, "Master, the multitudes press and jostle you, and you say, 'Who touched me?'"
- Luke 9:23 ἀρνησάσθω aor mid.dep impv 3sg He said to all, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
- Luke 12:9 ἀρνησάμενός aor mid.dep ptcp nom sg masc but he who denies me in the presence of men will be denied in the presence of the angels of God.
- Luke 22:57 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg He denied Jesus, saying, "Woman, I don't know him."
John 4 verses
- John 1:20 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg He confessed, and didn't deny, but he confessed, "I am not the Christ."
- John 13:38 ἀρνήσῃ aor mid.dep subj 2sg Jesus answered him, "Will you lay down your life for me? Most assuredly I tell you, the rooster won't crow until you have denied me three times.
- John 18:25 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said therefore to him, "You aren't also one of his disciples, are you?" He denied it, and said, "I am not."
- John 18:27 ἠρνήσατο aor mid.dep ind 3sg Peter therefore denied it again, and immediately the rooster crowed.
Acts 4 verses
- Acts 3:13 ἠρνήσασθε aor mid.dep ind 2pl The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to release him.
- Acts 3:14 ἠρνήσασθε aor mid.dep ind 2pl But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,
- Acts 4:16 ἀρνεῖσθαι pres mid/pass.dep inf saying, "What shall we do to these men? Because indeed a notable miracle has been done through them, as can be plainly seen by all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we can't deny it.
- Acts 7:35 ἠρνήσαντο aor mid.dep ind 3pl "This Moses, whom they refused, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?'--God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
1 Timothy 1 verse
2 Timothy 3 verses
- 2 Timothy 2:12 ἀρνησόμεθα ἀρνήσεται fut mid.dep ind 1pl fut mid.dep ind 3sg If we endure, We will also reign with him. If we deny him, He also will deny us.
- 2 Timothy 2:13 ἀρνήσασθαι aor mid.dep inf If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He can't deny himself.
- 2 Timothy 3:5 ἠρνημένοι perf mid/pass.dep ptcp nom pl masc holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof. Turn away from these, also.
Titus 2 verses
- Titus 1:16 ἀρνοῦνται pres mid/pass.dep ind 3pl They profess that they know God, but by their works they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.
- Titus 2:12 ἀρνησάμενοι aor mid.dep ptcp nom pl masc instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;
Hebrews 1 verse
2 Peter 1 verse
1 John 2 verses
- 1 John 2:22 ἀρνούμενος ἀρνούμενος pres mid/pass.dep ptcp nom sg masc pres mid/pass.dep ptcp nom sg masc Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.
- 1 John 2:23 ἀρνούμενος pres mid/pass.dep ptcp nom sg masc Whoever denies the Son, the same doesn't have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.
Jude 1 verse
Revelation 2 verses
- Revelation 2:13 ἠρνήσω aor mid.dep ind 2sg "I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. You hold firmly to my name, and didn't deny my faith in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
- Revelation 3:8 ἠρνήσω aor mid.dep ind 2sg "I know your works (behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut), that you have a little power, and kept my word, and didn't deny my name.
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.
αρνεομαι — transliterated arnéomai — is a Greek verb carrying the sense “to deny.” Where the King James Version says “denied,” newer translations reach for “denies” (Berean Standard Bible) and “it” (unfoldingWord Literal Text); the renderings breakdown has the detail. It appears 30 verses across 13 books of the Greek New Testament, among its moderately common vocabulary. Debuting at Matthew 10:33, it then recurs through the corpus. Its lexical range runs to 4 senses. See the sense tree, 30-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G720 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 →
- 30
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 30 distinct verses.
- 13 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 13 of 27 New Testament books.
- #433
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 433 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 30 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 30 distinct verses.
- Gospels 13 verses · 43%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 8 verses · 27%
- Johannine 8 verses · 27%
- Pauline corpus 6 verses · 20%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 4 verses · 13%
- Revelation 2 verses · 7%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 3%
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: Denied 8×, Deny 4×, Denying 4×
- American Standard Version: Denied 5×, Deny 4×, He denied 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Denies 5×, Denied 4×, He denied 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: It 7×, Denied 6×, Denying 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G720 across 33 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G720 across 32 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G720 across 32 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 G720 across 48 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 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 4 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 deny
- to deny one's self
- to deny, abnegate, abjure
- not to accept, to reject, to refuse something offered
Word origin
Derived from Α (A) (G1) — alpha.
Forms in the corpus
The 21 distinct written forms G720 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G720, 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
- αβαρης abarḗs G4 light
- αβυσσος ábyssos G12 abyss
- αγαμος ágamos G22 unmarried
- αγενεαλογητος agenealógētos G35 without genealogy
- αγενης agenḗs G36 ignoble
- αγναφος ágnaphos G46 unprocessed
- αγνοεω agnoéō G50 to be ignorant
- αγνωσια agnōsía G56 ignorance
- αγνωστος ágnōstos G57 unknown
- αγραμματος agrámmatos G62 unlearned
- αγρυπνεω agrypnéō G69 to watch
- αδαπανος adápanos G77 free
- αδελφος adelphós G80 brother
- αδηλος ádēlos G82 obscure
- αδης háidēs G86 hell
- αδιακριτος adiákritos G87 clear
- αδιαλειπτος adiáleiptos G88 continual
- αδικος ádikos G94 unjust
- αδοκιμος adókimos G96 unapproved
- αδολος ádolos G97 guileless
- αδυνατος adýnatos G102 weak
- αζυμος ázymos G106 unleavened
- αθανασια athanasía G110 immortal
- αθεμιτος athémitos G111 unlawful
+149 more words share this root (not shown).
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 176 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αρνεομαι appears 1 time in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 1 verse in 1 book.
- 1
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 1
- verse
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 18:15 ἀρνέομαι
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G720) 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.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G720) 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.
