תַּזְנוּת
fornication
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).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct 16 times (73%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 6 times (27%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 22 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H8457 appears — 19 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Ezekiel 19 verses
- Ezekiel 16:15 תַּזְנוּתַ֛יִ/ךְ n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs But you did trust in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by; his it was.
- Ezekiel 16:20 מ/תזנת/ך מִ/תַּזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 2fs prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and these have you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your prostitution a small matter,
- Ezekiel 16:22 וְ/תַזְנֻתַ֔יִ/ךְ conj + n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and was weltering in your blood.
- Ezekiel 16:25 תזנת/ך תַּזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ n c fs cs + sfx pers 2fs n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 16:26 תַּזְנֻתֵ֖/ךְ n c fs cs + sfx pers 2fs You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.
- Ezekiel 16:29 תַּזְנוּתֵ֛/ךְ n c fs cs + sfx pers 2fs You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren't satisfied with this.
- Ezekiel 16:33 בְּ/תַזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs They give gifts to all prostitutes; but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 16:34 בְּ/תַזְנוּתַ֔יִ/ךְ prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs You are different from [other] women in your prostitution, in that none follows you to play the prostitute; and whereas you give hire, and no hire is given to you, therefore you are different.
- Ezekiel 16:36 בְּ/תַזְנוּתַ֖יִ/ךְ prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;
- Ezekiel 23:7 תַּזְנוּתֶ֨י/הָ֙ n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
- Ezekiel 23:8 תַּזְנוּתֶ֤י/הָ תַזְנוּתָ֖/ם n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp Neither has she left her prostitution since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.
- Ezekiel 23:11 תַּ֨זְנוּתֶ֔י/הָ n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.
- Ezekiel 23:14 תַּזְנוּתֶ֑י/הָ n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,
- Ezekiel 23:17 בְּ/תַזְנוּתָ֑/ם prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
- Ezekiel 23:18 תַּזְנוּתֶ֔י/הָ n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs So she uncovered her prostitution, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.
- Ezekiel 23:19 תַּזְנוּתֶ֑י/הָ n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt.
- Ezekiel 23:29 וְ/תַזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ conj + n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs and they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare; and the nakedness of your prostitution shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 23:35 תַּזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ n c fp cs + sfx pers 2fs Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore bear you also your lewdness and your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 23:43 תַזְנוּתֶ֖/הָ n c fp cs + sfx pers 3fs Then said I of her who was old in adulteries, Now will they play the prostitute with her, and she [with them].
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.
At its core, תזנות (taznûwth) means “fornication.” The word gravitates to Ezekiel (100%). It turns up in 19 verses across 1 book, an uncommon footprint. It first appears in Ezekiel 16:15. Translators differ — “whoredoms” in the King James Version, then “promiscuity” (Berean Standard Bible) and “acts of prostitution” (unfoldingWord Literal Text), as the renderings breakdown shows. Dig into 19-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8457 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 →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,412
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,412 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 19 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ezekiel 19 verses 100%
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 19 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 19 verses · 100%
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: Whoredoms 11×, Whoredom 3×
- American Standard Version: Whoredoms 11×, Whoredom 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Promiscuity 6×, Prostitution 4×, Lust 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Acts of prostitution 7×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8457 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H8457 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H8457 across 19 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8457 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
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.
- fornication, harlotry
Word origin
[ תַּזְנוּת ] n.f.abstr. fornication
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from זנה (zânâh) (H2181) — to commit fornication.
Forms in the corpus
The 20 distinct written forms H8457 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| תַּזְנוּתֶ֑י/הָ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:14 | 2 |
| תַּזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:25 | 2 |
| בְּ/תַזְנוּתַ֔יִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:34 | 1 |
| בְּ/תַזְנוּתַ֖יִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:36 | 1 |
| בְּ/תַזְנוּתָ֑/ם | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 23:17 | 1 |
| בְּ/תַזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:33 | 1 |
| וְ/תַזְנֻתַ֔יִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:22 | 1 |
| וְ/תַזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:29 | 1 |
| מ/תזנת/ך | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 16:20 | 1 |
| מִ/תַּזְנוּתָֽיִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:20 | 1 |
| תַזְנוּתֶ֖/הָ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:43 | 1 |
| תַזְנוּתָ֖/ם | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 23:8 | 1 |
| תַּ֨זְנוּתֶ֔י/הָ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:11 | 1 |
| תַּזְנֻתֵ֖/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 16:26 | 1 |
| תַּזְנוּתֵ֛/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 16:29 | 1 |
| תַּזְנוּתֶ֔י/הָ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:18 | 1 |
| תַּזְנוּתֶ֤י/הָ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:8 | 1 |
| תַּזְנוּתֶ֨י/הָ֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 23:7 | 1 |
| תַּזְנוּתַ֛יִ/ךְ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 16:15 | 1 |
| תזנת/ך | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 16:25 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8457, 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 verse parallels
This word appears in 19 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 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.
