קטן
small
also: young, insignificant, unimportant 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
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H6996 appears in the Book of Genesis — 19 distinct verses. 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.
Genesis
- Genesis 1:16 הַ/קָּטֹן֙ ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.
- Genesis 9:24 הַ/קָּטָֽן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done to him.
- Genesis 19:11 מִ/קָּטֹ֖ן prep + Adjective Adjective ms They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
- Genesis 27:15 הַ/קָּטָֽן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms Rebekah took the good clothes of Esau, her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son.
- Genesis 27:42 הַ/קָּטָ֔ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms The words of Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah. She sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said to him, "Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.
- Genesis 29:16 הַ/קְּטַנָּ֖ה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
- Genesis 29:18 הַ/קְּטַנָּֽה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs Jacob loved Rachel. He said, "I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter."
- Genesis 42:13 הַ/קָּטֹ֤ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms They said, "We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more."
- Genesis 42:15 הַ/קָּטֹ֖ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms Hereby you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh you shall not go forth from here, unless your youngest brother come here.
- Genesis 42:20 הַ/קָּטֹן֙ ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms Bring your youngest brother to me; so will your words be verified, and you won't die." They did so.
- Genesis 42:32 וְ/הַ/קָּטֹ֥ן conj + ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.'
- Genesis 42:34 הַ/קָּטֹן֮ ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I will know that you are not spies, but that you are honest men. So I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.'"
- Genesis 43:29 הַ/קָּטֹ֔ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms He lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin, his brother, his mother's son, and said, "Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?" He said, "God be gracious to you, my son."
- Genesis 44:2 הַ/קָּטֹ֔ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms Put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest, with his grain money." He did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.
- Genesis 44:12 וּ/בַ/קָּטֹ֖ן conj + prep det + Adjective Adjective ms He searched, beginning with the eldest, and ending at the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin's sack.
- Genesis 44:20 קָטָ֑ן adj Adjective ms We said to my lord, 'We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother; and his father loves him.'
- Genesis 44:23 הַ/קָּטֹ֖ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms You said to your servants, 'Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will see my face no more.'
- Genesis 44:26 הַ/קָּטֹ֤ן הַ/קָּטֹ֖ן ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms We said, 'We can't go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then will we go down: for we may not see the man's face, unless our youngest brother is with us.'
- Genesis 48:19 הַ/קָּטֹן֙ ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms His father refused, and said, "I know, my son, I know. He also will become a people, and he also will be great. However, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a multitude of nations."
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 Hebrew adjective קטן centers on the idea of “small.” Alongside “small” the lexicon also lists “young”, “insignificant”, and “unimportant” — part of its full sense range. It turns up in 100 verses across 24 books, a moderately common footprint. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 1:16. It shares a root with קוט, קטן and קטן. Dig into 100-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6996 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 →
- 100
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 100 distinct verses.
- 24 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 24 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #421
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 421 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 100 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 100 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 55 verses · 55%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 25 verses · 25%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 20 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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 4 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Small 16×, Little 12×, Younger 12×
- American Standard Version†: Small 18×, Youngest 9×, Little 8×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Small 21×, Younger 14×, Youngest 12×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Small 34×, Youngest 17×, Little 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6996 across 101† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 23 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 H6996 across 100† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 36 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 H6996 across 99† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6996 across 100† 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.
11 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 11 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.
קטן I be small, insignificant (NH Hiph. and deriv.
Qal
- Pf. 1 s. קָטֹנְתִּי Gn 32:11, c. מִן comp., I am too insignificant for all the kindnesses; Impf. 3 fs. וַתִּקְטַן זֹאת בְּעֵינֶיךָ 2 S 7:19 = 1 Ch 17:17. e.g. Genesis 32:11
Hiphil
- lit. Inf. cstr. לְהַקְטִין Am 8:5 making ephah small. e.g. Amos 8:5
קטן II small, young, unimportant
- 1. small: especially
- a. of children, youth = young, Gn 44:20 (J) 2 S 9:12; 1 K 11:17; 2 K 2:23; 5:2, of sister Ct 8:8; = younger, of two children (often opp. גדול), Gn 9:24; 27:15, 42 (all J), 29:16, 18 (E), 1 S 14:49 (f.; opp. הַבְּכִירָה); of younger sister Ju 15:2, so (fig.) Ez 16:46 and (+ מִן comp.) v 61; brother 1 Ch 24:31; הַקּ׳ youngest son (of several) 1 S 16:11; 17:14; + גָּדוֹל = young and old (v. קָטֹן 1) Je 16:6 cf. 2 Ch 31:15; 34:30. e.g. Genesis 44:20
- b. of things: utterance Nu 22:18 (E), weight Dt 25:13, 14, vessels 2 Ch 36:18, animals ψ 104:25 (all opp. גדול); cf. also 2 S 12:3; 1 K 2:20; 17:13; 18:44; 2 K 4:10; Ez 43:14 (opp. גדול), Pr 30:24; Ct 2:15, + prob. Ez 46:22 (v II. [קָטַר]); כְּלֵי הַקָּטָן Is 22:24 the vessels of small size (fig.). e.g. Numbers 22:18
- 2. small:
- a. with added idea of weakness, pers. 2 K 18:24 = Is 36:9, city Ec 9:14. e.g. 2 Kings 18:24
- b. = insignificant, (1) tribe 1 S 9:21; (2) pers. (+ גדול; = all persons) Je 6:13; 31:34 Jon 3:5 ψ 115:13 Est 1:5, 20, cf. 1 Ch 12:14 (van d. H. v 13); (3) in gen., יוֹם קְטַנּוֹת Zc 4:10 day of small things.—Vid. also קָטֹן. e.g. 1 Samuel 9:21
קטן III m. (the small)
קטן IV small, insignificant
- a. of youth = young, נַעַר ק׳ 1 S 20:35; 1 K 3:7; 2 K 5:14; Is 11:6; = younger of two brothers, Gn 48:17 (E) Ju 1:13; 3:9 (+ מִן comp.); הַקּ׳ youngest brother Gn 42:13 + 10 times Gn (JE), son Ju 9:5 2 Ch 22:1, so קְטֹן בַּנָיו 21:17; + גדול = young and old (v. קָטָן 1), i.e. everybody Gn 19:11 (J), 1 S 5:9; 30:2 + (of pers. and things) v 19. e.g. 1 Samuel 20:35
- b. of things 1 S 2:19; 1 K 8:64 (+ מִן comp.), Am 6:11 Is 54:7; opp. גָּדוֹל 1 S 22:15; 25:36; Gn 1:16 (P). e.g. 1 Samuel 2:19
- 2. = unimportant, things, Ex 18:22, 26 (E), 1 S 20:2 (all opp. גדול); pers., = feeble Am 7:2, 5; = insignificant Je 49:15 Ob 2 (both ‖ בָּזוּי), Is 60:22 (‖ צָעִיר); ק׳ בְּעֵינֶיךָ 1 S 15:17; especially + גָּדוֹל = low and high, = everybody, Dt 1:17; 1 K 22:31 = 2 Ch 18:30; Je 8:10; Jb 3:19, + 8 times—Vid. also קָטָן. e.g. Exodus 18:22
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
I. vb. be small, insignificant (NH Hiph. and deriv.; J.Aram. in deriv., Syriac ܩܛܰܢ; Old Aramaic קטין insignificant; Arabic قَطِىن parum edens; Ethiopic ቀጠነ be thin, chiefly in deriv.; prob. also Assyrian kuṭṭinnu, small, younger, ZehnpfBAS i. 505 (otherwise DlHWB 323); MeissnSuppl. ḳatânu, be short (of hair), cf. BezZA viii, 141 f.);—
I. adj. small, young, unimportant;—abs. ק׳ Gn 9:24 +; sf. קְטַנָּם (Köii. 1, 74) Je 6:13 +; fs. קְטַנָּה Gn 29:16 +; mpl. קְטַנִּים 2 K 18:24 +; cstr. קְטַנֵּי 1 S 9:21 (v. Dr; We conj. -נִּי, old cstr., cf. HPS), Pr 30:24; fpl. קְטַנּוֹת Ez 16:61 +;—
II. n.pr.m. (the small);—הַקּ׳, post-ex. name Ezr 8:12, Ακ(κ)αταν.
II. adj. small, insignificant;—abs. ק׳ 1 S 2:19 +; cstr. קְטֹן 2 Ch 21:17;—f., pl. and sf. supplied by קָטָן;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from קוט (qûwṭ) (H6962) — to loathe.
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.
קטן
- , Yalk. Sam. 124, ק׳ השמן, read: קִיתוֹן.
קֹטֶן
- , v. קוֹטֶן
קָטֹן
- (b. h.) to be short, small, inferior. Gen. R. s. 76 (expl. קטנתי, Gen. XXXII, 11) איני כדאי … כדאי אני אכל קָטֹנְתִּי מכל וכ׳ I am not deserving (of any of the mercies &c.); R. L. says, I am deserving, but I am too small for (unworthy of) all the mercies &c. e.g. Genesis 32:11
- 1. to make small; to subordinate. B. Bath. 90ᵇ מַקְטִינֵי איפה those who make the Ephah (measure) small (Am. VIII, 5). Y. Sot. IX, 24ᵇ Samuel was surnamed ‘the small’, לפי שהוא מַקְטִין את עצמו because he made himself small (bore himself humbly). Gen. R. s. 37 (play on יקטן, Gen. X, 25) מקטין את עסקיו made his affairs small (was contented with subordinate services); מקטין את עצמו ואת עסקיו subordinated himself and his affairs, v. צָעַר. Meg. 11ᵃ, v. קַטְנוּת; a. e. e.g. Amos 8:5
- 2. to grow smaller, be narrower. Lev. R. s. 31 מַקְטִינוֹת, v. רָחב; Pesik. Ḳumi, p. 145ᵃ; ib. 145ᵇ מקיטנות (corr. acc.).
- to shrink. Snh. 81ᵇ עד שיוּקְטָן, v. מַעְיָן.
- to be reduced, become less. Tosef. Sot. XV, 5 Var. משמת … נִתְקַטְּנָה חסידות וכ׳ when Abba José ben Ḳiṭnith died, piety became rare in Israel; v. קִיטּוּנְתָּא.
קָטָן
- preced.) small, young; inferior. Y. Kil. IV, beg. 29ᵃ. Ab. IV, 19, a. fr. שמואל הק׳ Samuel the junior; Y. Sot. IX, 24ᵇ, v. preced. Yeb. II, 8 הק׳ a younger brother. Gen. R. s. 37 ומה אם הק׳ שהוא מקטין וכ׳ if an inferior person that is contented with a subordinate position (v. preced.) is thus rewarded, how much more a great man &c. Gen. R. s. 93 קְטַנָּן של שבטים one of the youngest of the tribes; Yalk. ib. 152 (not קטנו); Yalk. Ps. 762; a. fr.—Esp. minor, a boy under thirteen, a girl under twelve years. Gitt. 65ᵃ שלש מדות בק׳ וכ׳ there are three legal stages of a minor: when he throws away a pebble &c., v. צְרוֹר II; וכנגדן בק׳ מתקדשת וכ׳ and in the corresponding stage a girl may be betrothed subject to protest (מִיאוּן). Ib. II, 6 קבל הק׳ והגדיל if he received a letter of divorce (as a carrier) while he was a minor, and reached majority before delivery. Ber. 47ᵇ; a. fr.—Sot. 22ᵃ (among those who are a ruin to the world) ק׳ שלא כלו לו וכ׳ a child whose months are not complete (a prematurely born child), expl. ib. ‘a student who disregards his teacher’, or ‘a student who constitutes himself a teacher before regular ordination.’—Pl. קְטַנִּים; קְטַנּוֹת. Tosef. Snh. XIII, 1 קטנים בני רשעי ארץ ed. Zuck. (Var. קְטַנֵּי) children of the wicked of the land that died in childhood; Snh. 110ᵇ; Y. Shebi. IV, end, 35ᶜ ק׳ ישראל children of Israelites (that died); ק׳ גוים of gentiles. Keth. II, 3 ק׳ היינו we were minors (when we signed as witnesses). Ib. VII, 9 מומין הק׳ minor physical blemishes. Sot. 48ᵇ ק׳ אמנה, v. אֲמָנָה. Ib. 49ᵇ מק׳ חסידים of the youngest (last) of the pious men (v. next w.); a. fr.—Euphem. קְטַנִּים (sub. נקבים) the minor functions of the body, urinating. Ber. 23ᵇ; a. fr.
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 63 distinct written forms H6996 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 3 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6996, 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
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 5 — not the complete family. 2 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 99 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 100 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 1:16
- Exodus 18:22
- Numbers 22:18
- Deuteronomy 1:17
- Judges 1:13
- 1 Samuel 2:19
- 2 Samuel 9:12
- 1 Kings 2:20
- 2 Kings 2:23
- 1 Chronicles 12:14
- 2 Chronicles 15:13
- Esther 1:5
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.
