עוֹף
bird
‘bird’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H5775 appears in the Book of Isaiah — 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.
Isaiah
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.
“bird” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun עוף (ʻôwph). Where the King James Version says “fowls,” newer translations reach for “birds” (Berean Standard Bible); the renderings breakdown has the detail. It appears 70 verses across 14 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Genesis. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 70-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5775 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 →
- 70
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 70 distinct verses.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #558
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 558 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 70 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 70 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 34 verses · 49%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 28 verses · 40%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 11%
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: Fowls 23×, Fowl 7×, Birds 5×
- American Standard Version: Birds 31×, All winged 4×, Bird 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Birds 42×, Bird 15×, Flying 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Birds 15×, Bird 12×, Bird of 12×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5775 across 71 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H5775 across 70 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 H5775 across 71 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear 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 H5775 across 76 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 the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 2 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. fowl birds, Gn 40:17, 19 (E), 7:8 (J), 1:20, 22 (P), 1 K 5:13 +; especially (38 times) ע׳ הַשָּׁמַיִם fowl of the sky, Gn 2:19, 20 (J), 1:26, 28, 30 (P), Ho 2:20 Ec 10:20 +, carrion birds 1 S 17:44, 46 2 S 21:10 1 K 14:11 + 11 times; ע׳ הָרִים ψ 50:11, ע׳ נוֹדֵד Is 16:2, כִּכְלוּב מָלֵא ע׳ Je 5:27; redundantly ע׳ כָּנָף fowl of wing Gn 1:21 (P), ψ 78:27 (for food); for food also Lv 7:26 (P), 17:13; 20:25 (both H), cf. Lv 11:13, 46 (H, clean and unclean); for offering Gn 8:20 (J; הָע׳ הַטָּהוֹר), Lv 1:14 (P). e.g. Genesis 40:17
- 2. winged insects (clean and unclean) שֶׁרֶץ הָע׳ הַהֹלֵךְ עַל־אַרְבַּע Lv 11:20, 21 (H), שׁ׳ הָע׳ Dt 14:19, so prob. הָע׳ alone v 20; שׁ׳ הָע׳ אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ אַרְבַּע רַגְלָ֑יִם Lv 11:23 (H). e.g. Leviticus 11:20
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
n.m. Gn 40:17 coll. flying creatures, fowl, insects;—ע׳ abs. Gn 1:20 +, cstr. v 21 +;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עוף (ʻûwph) (H5774) — to fly.
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.
עוּף I
- to be bent, doubled; to be wearied. Ḥull. II, 3 ועָף, v. שָׁחַז. Midr. Sam. ch. XXIII, beg. מריב עונית … עָפִים ומתעלפים on account of the multitude of my sins are the righteous in me wearied and faint.—Denom. עוֹף, עָיֵף.
עוּף
- ch., v. עִיף
עוּף II
- to fly. Sabb. 26ᵃ מפני שהוא עָף because it is volatile (explosive). [Sot. 45ᵃ עפו, עף Ar., v. צוּף.]
- same. Ber. 63ᵃ פרנסתו מְעוֹפֶפֶת לו כעוף his sustenance comes flying to him like a bird. Ḥull. XII, 3 היתה מעופפת if the mother bird was flying about the nest; Tosef. ib. X, 10. Pirké d’R. El. ch. IV ובשתים מְעוֹפְפִים וכ׳ and with two wings they fly, and they sanctify &c.; Yalk. Is. 271; a. e.
עוּף ²
- Targ. O. Deut. IV, 17 דפרח דתיעוף ed. Lisb. (ed. only דפרח; דתיעוף being a gloss).
עוֹף
- [bend, wing; cmp. כָּנָף,] bird, fowl. B. Kam. 92ᵇ (quoted fr. כתובים) כל ע׳ למינו ישכון ובן אדם לדומה לו (not ובני; Tosaf. ע׳ כנף) every bird nests according to (with) its kind, and man with one like himself; Yalk. Gen. 116; Yalk. Jud. 67. Ḥull. 27ᵇ, a. fr. אין שחיטה לע׳ מן התורה the ritual slaughtering of birds is not indicated in the Torah. Sabb. 130ᵃ, a. e. במקומו … בשר ע׳ בחלב in the native town of R. J. the Galilean they ate poultry prepared with milk; a. v. fr.—Pl. עוֹפוֹת. Ḥull. l. c. Gen. R. s. 67, v. סִכְסֵךְ I; a. fr.
עוֹף ²
- Targ. Y. Lev. V, 10. Targ. Gen. I, 20; a. fr.—Pl. עוֹפִין, עוֹפַיָּא, עוֹפָן. Targ. Ps. L, 11 Ms. (ed. sing.). Ib. XXIII, 5 ed. Lag. Targ. Y. Gen. XXV, 27.
עִיף II
- to bend, double. Targ. Ex. XXVI, 9 ותְעוּף Ms. I (Ms. II ותְעִיף; O. ed. Berl. a. Y. ותֵיעוֹף; oth. ed. ותָעֵיף Af.).—Part. pass. (עֵיף) עִיף. Ib. XXVIII, 16; XXXIX, 9 (Y. ed. Vien. עֵיף).—Ber. 56ᵃ, v. חָסָא I. Ḥull. 51ᵇ עִיף מֵיעַף Ar. (Alf. עָיֵיף מיעף; ed. עוף ומעופף) if the cloak is well folded.
- to double, fold. Keth. 67ᵇ עַיְּיפִינְהוּ וכ׳ he doubled them (his gifts) and sent them to him. Sabb. 134ᵃ ולְעַיֵּיף ליה לעילאי (not ועייף; Rashi ולעַפְפֵיה; Ms. Rashi וליכייפיה, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 10) let him bend the border upward. Erub. 96ᵇ אדעתא … עייפינהו he doubled them with the intention of making borders to a cloak. Men. 42ᵃ; a. e.
- same, v. supra.
- , v. עֲפַף
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 36 distinct written forms H5775 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5775, 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
- מועף mûwʻâph H4155 darkness
- מעוף mâʻûwph H4588 gloom
- עיפה ʻêyphâh H5890 darkness
- עפעף ʻaphʻaph H6079 eyelid
Derived from this word
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 8 — 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 verse parallels
This word appears in 66 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 70 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
- Genesis 1:20
- Leviticus 1:14
- Deuteronomy 14:19
- 2 Samuel 21:10
- 1 Kings 14:11
- Job 12:7
- Psalms 50:11
- Ecclesiastes 10:20
- Isaiah 16:2
- Jeremiah 4:25
- Ezekiel 29:5
- Hosea 2:18
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.
