מַעֲדָן
dainty
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H4574 appears in the Book of Proverbs — 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 Hebrew 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 Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Proverbs
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.
“dainty” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מעדן (maʻădân). It is rare — just 4 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Genesis. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 49:20. It shares a root with עדן, עדין and עדן. See the sense tree, 4-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4574 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,696
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,696 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 4 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 4 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 50%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 25%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 25%
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: Delicately 2×
- American Standard Version: Cheerfully 1×, Dainties 1×, Delicately 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Delicacies 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Bonds 1×, Delicacies 1×, Delights 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4574 across 4 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4574 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4574 across 3 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 H4574 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB 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.
- dainty (food), delight
Word origin
[ מַעֲדָן ] n.[m.] dainty (food), delight
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עדן (ʻâdan) (H5727) — to luxuriate.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
מַעֲדֵן I
- מעדנות; עָדַן Hif.) knots of reed matting; v. מַדֵּן.
מַעֲדֵן II
- dainties, sweets; מַעֲדַנֵּי עולם the best things in the world. Sot. 9ᵃ; 15ᵇ. Num. R. s. 7 כל מ׳ ע׳ טועמין במן they found in the manna the taste of all the best things &c.—Y. Ber. VI, 10ᵇ top בורא מיני מ׳ the Creator of various kinds of sweet things (fruits &c.). Ib. על הארץ ועל מַעֲדַנֶּיהָ for the land (Palestine) and its good things. Gen. R. s. 67 טעם כל מ׳ שבעולם the taste of all good things in the world; Yalk. ib. 115 מערכים (corr. acc.); a. fr.
עִדָּן
- , v. עִידָּן
עָדַן
- (b. h.) [to turn, v. עוּד,] to be round, smooth, pliant. Pi. עִידֵּן
- 1. to make pliant; to bend. M. Kat. 16ᵇ (play on עדינו, II Sam. XXIII, 8) כשהיה … היה מְעַדֵּן עצמו וכ׳ when sitting and studying the Law, he made himself pliant like a worm, opp. מקשה עצמו stiffening one’s self. e.g. 2 Samuel 23:8
- 2. to smooth, lubricate, to improve (the complexion); to refresh, invigorate. Cant. R. to I, 2 מה שמן מְעַדֵּן … מְעַדְּנִים וכ׳ as oil brightens the appearance of the head and the body, so the words of the Law &c. Pes. 43ᵃ משיר … ומעדן את הבשר makes the hair fall out and improves the complexion. Y. Ber. VI, 10ᵇ top אשר … מעדנים לעַדֵּן בהן וכ׳ who created all sorts of delicacies to refresh therewith the soul &c. Gen. R. s. 16 עִדְּנוֹ מכל אילני וכ׳ he nursed him (with fruits) of all the trees of the garden of Eden; ib. לעַדְּנוֹ וכ׳ he had intended to nurse him &c. Sabb. 33ᵇ מרחצאות לעַדֵּן בהן עצמן (Ms. M. לֵעָרֵן בהן; Yalk. Ms. להִתְעַדֵּן, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) (the Romans have erected baths) for their own enjoyment (not for the benefit of the people); Ab. Zar. 2ᵇ; Yalk. Is. 316. Sifré Deut. 306 כל זמן … היו מערבים ומעדנים ומפנקים וכ׳ as long as my son does my will, humor him, nurse him and indulge him and give him to eat and to drink; Yalk. Deut. 942 היו מְעַדְּנִין וכ׳. Sifré l. c. מה רביבים … ומעדנים וכ׳ as the rains come down on the plants and brighten them and embellish them &c.; Yalk. l. c; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְעוּדָּן a) well-nursed, graceful. Y. Ned. IX, end, 41ᶜ (ref. to II Sam. I, 24) אין תכשיט … גוף מע׳ ornamentation becomes only a well-nursed (graceful) body.—b) indulged, used to luxuries. Mekh. Mishp. s. 8 אם היה מרוכך מע׳ מפונק if the wounded man was delicately reared, used to comfort and luxuries; Yalk. Ex. 339. e.g. 2 Samuel 1:24
- to surround, bind, connect. Gen. R. s. 10 (ref. to Job XXXVIII, 31 מעדנות וכ׳) כימה מַעֲדֶנֶת וכ׳ the Kimah binds (gives substance and shape to) the fruits; cmp. מָזַר. e.g. Job 38:31
- to be made smooth, pliable; to be rejuvenated; to be nursed, recover strength. B. Bath. 120ᵃ נ׳ הבשר ונתפשטו וכ׳ the body was again made smooth, the wrinkles of age were straightened out, and beauty returned &c.; Yalk. Ex. 165. Sabb. 33ᵇ, v. supra. Ned. 8ᵇ מִתְעַדְּנִין בה the righteous will be rejuvenated by it (by basking in the sun). Pesik. Haḥod., p. 102ᵃ יִתְעַדֵּן בני וכ׳ let my son be nursed with food and drink for two or three months; יִתְעַדְּנוּ בני וכ׳ let my children be nursed &c.; Cant. R. to II, 5; Koh. R. to III, 11; a. fr.
עֵדֶן
- preced.) refreshment, pleasure; esp. ע׳ or גַּן עֵ׳ (abbrev. ג"ע) the garden of Eden; paradise (of the hereafter). Gen. R. s. 15 (ref. to Gen. II, 8) גן גדול מע׳ the garden was larger than Eden, v. גַּן. Gen. R. s. 16 מכל אילני ג"ע, v. preced. Ber. 34ᵇ גן לחוד וע׳ לחוד the garden and Eden are two distinct things. Pes. 54ᵃ שבעה דברים … וג"ע וכ׳ seven things were created before the world was made: the Law, repentance, paradise, Gehenna, &c. Ber. l. c. (ref. to Is. LXIV, 3) זה ע׳ שלא וכ׳ that is Eden which no living creature’s eye has ever seen; Snh. 99ᵃ. Pes. 94ᵃ; a. fr. e.g. Genesis 2:8
עֵדֶן ²
- Targ. Gen. II, 8. Targ. Job XXXVIII, 18; a. fr.
עדן
- Y. Kidd. IV, 65ᵈ bot., v. מושהן
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 4 distinct written forms H4574 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| לְ/מַ֣עֲדַנִּ֔ים | Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute | Lamentations 4:5 | 1 |
| מַֽעֲדַנֵּי | Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Construct | Genesis 49:20 | 1 |
| מַעֲדַנִּ֣ים | Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 29:17 | 1 |
| מַעֲדַנֹּ֑ת | Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute | 1 Samuel 15:32 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4574, 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
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 7 — not the complete family. 3 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 4 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 4 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
