ἀδελφή
sister
‘sister’ 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.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 8 times (31%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine 5 times (19%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine 5 times (19%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine 4 times (15%)
- Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine 3 times (12%)
- Noun, Dative, Singular, Feminine 1 time (4%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 26 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G79 appears — 26 distinct verses across 11 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 12:50 ἀδελφὴ n nom sg fem For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."
- Matthew 13:56 ἀδελφαὶ n nom pl fem Aren't all of his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all of these things?"
- Matthew 19:29 ἀδελφὰς n acc pl fem Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, will receive one hundred times, and will inherit eternal life.
Mark 5 verses
- Mark 3:32 ἀδελφαί n nom pl fem A multitude was sitting around him, and they told him, "Behold, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside looking for you."
- Mark 3:35 ἀδελφὴ n nom sg fem For whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."
- Mark 6:3 ἀδελφαὶ n nom pl fem Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" They were offended at him.
- Mark 10:29 ἀδελφὰς n acc pl fem Jesus said, "Most assuredly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for my sake, and for the Gospel's sake,
- Mark 10:30 ἀδελφὰς n acc pl fem but he will receive one hundred times more now in this time, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land, with persecutions; and in the age to come eternal life.
Luke 3 verses
- Luke 10:39 ἀδελφὴ n nom sg fem She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
- Luke 10:40 ἀδελφή n nom sg fem But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she came up to him, and said, "Lord, don't you care that my sister left me to serve alone? Ask her therefore to help me."
- Luke 14:26 ἀδελφάς n acc pl fem "If anyone comes to me, and doesn't hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can't be my disciple.
John 6 verses
- John 11:1 ἀδελφῆς n gen sg fem Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha.
- John 11:3 ἀδελφαὶ n nom pl fem The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, "Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick."
- John 11:5 ἀδελφὴν n acc sg fem Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
- John 11:28 ἀδελφὴν n acc sg fem When she had said this, she went away, and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, "The Teacher is here, and is calling you."
- John 11:39 ἀδελφὴ n nom sg fem Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, "Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days."
- John 19:25 ἀδελφὴ n nom sg fem But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
Acts 1 verse
Romans 2 verses
1 Corinthians 2 verses
- 1 Corinthians 7:15 ἀδελφὴ n nom sg fem Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace.
- 1 Corinthians 9:5 ἀδελφὴν n acc sg fem Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
1 Timothy 1 verse
Philemon 1 verse
James 1 verse
2 John 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.
αδελφη — transliterated adelphḗ — is a Greek noun carrying the sense “sister.” Debuting at Matthew 12:50, it then recurs through the corpus. The Greek New Testament uses it across 26 verses — moderately common. Thayer's distinguishes 2 senses for it. It shares a root with αδελφος and αδελφοτης. See the sense tree, 26-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G79 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 →
- 26
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 26 distinct verses.
- 11 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 11 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 26 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 26 distinct verses.
- Gospels 17 verses · 65%
- Johannine 7 verses · 27%
- Pauline corpus 6 verses · 23%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 4 verses · 15%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 2 verses · 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: Sister 15×, Sisters 8×
- American Standard Version: Sister 13×, Sisters 8×, 's sister 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Sister 16×, Sisters 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Sister 16×, Sisters 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G79 across 24 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 G79 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 G79 across 25 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G79 across 26 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 full, own sister
- one connected by the tie of the Christian religion
Word origin
Derived from αδελφος (adelphós) (G80) — brother.
Feminine of G80 ; a sister (natural or ecclesiastical): - sister.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 9 distinct written forms G79 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀδελφὴ adelphḕ | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Matthew 12:50 | 7 |
| ἀδελφὴν adelphḕn | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine | John 11:5 | 5 |
| ἀδελφὰς adelphàs | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine | Matthew 19:29 | 4 |
| ἀδελφαὶ adelphaì | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine | Matthew 13:56 | 3 |
| ἀδελφῆς adelphē̂s | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine | John 11:1 | 3 |
| ἀδελφάς adelphás | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine | Luke 14:26 | 1 |
| ἀδελφή adelphḗ | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Luke 10:40 | 1 |
| ἀδελφαί adelphaí | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine | Mark 3:32 | 1 |
| ἀδελφῇ adelphē̂ | Noun, Dative, Singular, Feminine | Philemon 1:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G79, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αδελφη appears 103 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 94 verses in 16 books.
- 103
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 94
- 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 4:22 ἀδελφή
- Exodus 2:4 ἀδελφή
- Leviticus 18:9 ἀδελφή
- Numbers 6:7 ἀδελφή
- Deuteronomy 27:22 ἀδελφή
- Judges 15:2 ἀδελφή
- 2 Samuel 13:1 ἀδελφή
- 1 Kings 11:19 ἀδελφή
- 2 Kings 11:2 ἀδελφή
- 1 Chronicles 2:16 ἀδελφή
- 2 Chronicles 22:11 ἀδελφή
- Job 1:4 ἀδελφή
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G79) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 94. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 4:22 ἀδελφή Zillah also gave birth to Tubal Cain, the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron. Tubal Cain's sister was Naamah.
- Genesis 12:13 ἀδελφή Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you."
- Genesis 12:19 ἀδελφή Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now therefore, see your wife, take her, and go your way."
- Genesis 20:2 ἀδελφή Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
- Genesis 20:5 ἀδελφή Didn't he tell me, 'She is my sister?' She, even she herself said, 'He is my brother.' In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands have I done this."
- Genesis 20:12 ἀδελφή Moreover she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
- Genesis 24:30 ἀδελφή It happened, when he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, "This is what the man said to me," that he came to the man. Behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring.
- Genesis 24:59 ἀδελφή They sent away Rebekah, their sister, with her nurse, Abraham's servant, and his men.
- Genesis 24:60 ἀδελφή They blessed Rebekah, and said to her, "Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your seed possess the gate of those who hate them."
- Genesis 25:20 ἀδελφή Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife.
- Genesis 26:7 ἀδελφή The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "My wife," lest, he thought, the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she was beautiful to look on.
- Genesis 26:9 ἀδελφή Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"
- Genesis 28:9 ἀδελφή Esau went to Ishmael, and took, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife.
- Genesis 29:13 ἀδελφή It happened, when Laban heard the news of Jacob, his sister's son, that he ran to meet Jacob, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things.
- Genesis 30:1 ἀδελφή When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I will die."
- Genesis 30:8 ἀδελφή Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed." She named him Naphtali.
- Genesis 34:13 ἀδελφή The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit, and spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,
- Genesis 34:14 ἀδελφή and said to them, "We can't do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.
- Genesis 34:27 ἀδελφή Jacob's sons came on the dead, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.
- Genesis 34:31 ἀδελφή They said, "Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?"
- Genesis 36:3 ἀδελφή and Basemath, Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebaioth.
- Genesis 36:22 ἀδελφή The children of Lotan were Hori and Heman. Lotan's sister was Timna.
- Genesis 46:17 ἀδελφή The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah their sister. The sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.
- Exodus 2:4 ἀδελφή His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him.
- Exodus 2:7 ἀδελφή Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?"
- Exodus 6:20 ἀδελφή Amram took Jochebed his father's sister to himself as wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were a hundred and thirty-seven years.
- Exodus 6:23 ἀδελφή Aaron took Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, the sister of Nahshon, as his wife; and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
- Exodus 15:20 ἀδελφή Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dances.
- Leviticus 18:9 ἀδελφή "'You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home, or born abroad.
- Leviticus 18:11 ἀδελφή "'You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, conceived by your father, since she is your sister. "'
- Leviticus 18:12 ἀδελφή You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister: she is your father's near kinswoman.
- Leviticus 18:13 ἀδελφή "'You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister: for she is your mother's near kinswoman.
- Leviticus 18:18 ἀδελφή "'You shall not take a wife to her sister, to be a rival, to uncover her nakedness, while her sister is yet alive.
- Leviticus 20:17 ἀδελφή "'If a man takes his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness; it is a shameful thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people: he has uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.
- Leviticus 20:19 ἀδελφή "'You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, nor of your father's sister; for he has made naked his close relative: they shall bear their iniquity.
- Leviticus 21:3 ἀδελφή and for his virgin sister who is near to him, who has had no husband; for her he may defile himself.
- Numbers 6:7 ἀδελφή He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die; because his separation to God is on his head.
- Numbers 25:18 ἀδελφή for they vex you with their wiles, with which they have deceived you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor.
- Numbers 26:59 ἀδελφή The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt: and she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
- Deuteronomy 27:22 ἀδελφή Cursed be he who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. All the people shall say, Amen.
- Deuteronomy 27:23 ἀδελφή Cursed be he who lies with his mother-in-law. All the people shall say, Amen.
- Judges 15:2 ἀδελφή Her father said, I most assuredly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her, instead.
- 2 Samuel 13:1 ἀδελφή It happened after this, that Absalom the son of David had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her.
- 2 Samuel 13:2 ἀδελφή Amnon was so vexed that he fell sick because of his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her.
- 2 Samuel 13:4 ἀδελφή He said to him, Why, son of the king, are you thus lean from day to day? Won't you tell me? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.
- 2 Samuel 13:5 ἀδελφή Jonadab said to him, Lay you down on your bed, and feign yourself sick: and when your father comes to see you, tell him, Please let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and dress the food in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it from her hand.
- 2 Samuel 13:6 ἀδελφή So Amnon lay down, and feigned himself sick: and when the king was come to see him, Amnon said to the king, Please let her sister Tamar come, and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.
- 2 Samuel 13:11 ἀδελφή When she had brought them near to him to eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, Come, lie with me, my sister.
- 2 Samuel 13:20 ἀδελφή Absalom her brother said to her, Has Amnon your brother been with you? but now hold your peace, my sister: he is your brother; don't take this thing to heart. So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.
- 2 Samuel 13:22 ἀδελφή Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G79) 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.
