A New Testament Word Book

A Glossary

Eric Partridge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138912250
• eBook ISBN: 9781317431909
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

First published in 1940, this book provides a literary dictionary to the New Testament. The treatment of selected words and phrases is not theological, but lexicographical and etymological. Each entry is introduced by illustrative quotations from the New Testament, and the book provides an insightful exploration of these phrases.

Glossary

A

abide. To await.
'. . . The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me' (Acts, xx, 23).
From the O.E. abidan, to wait for, await; remain ready for, watch for, expect' (O.E.D.). The intransitive sense, 'to remain in expectation, wait' arose about a century later. The prevailing modern intransitive sense, 'to continue in existence, to stand firm or sure', did not arise until late in the 14th Century—some four hundred years after the primary O.E. sense appears—and it occurs in Psalms (cxix, 90) thus, 'Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth, The sense, 'to bear, tolerate, put up with' ('I can't abide love-stories!') is now English so familiar as to be almost colloquial.

accomplish. To complete or make complete; to fulfil; almost, to comply with', applied to time or number. 'And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS' (Luke, ii, 21). Cf. Shakespeare's 'And all the number of his fair demands | Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction' (Richard II, m, iii, 124). Through Old Fr. from late L. accomplere (complere, 'to fill up', hence 'to complete').

Acts. See Apostles.

addict oneself. '. . . Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints' (I Corinthians, xvi, 15). I.e., devoted themselves to, given themselves up to (as servants or adherents or disciples): cf. True bishops should addict themselves to a particular flock', 1621; 'We sincerely addict ourselves to Almighty God' (Fuller, 1655). This reflexive use was common ca. 1575-1720. Probably formed from the adjective addict (bound; devoted, consecrated), which represents L. addictus, 'assigned by decree; bound; devoted' (O.E.D.).
Now used only as participial adj., generally with an unfavourable connotation, as in addicted to drink.

adjure. 'But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God' (Matthew, xxvi, 63), cf. Mark, v, 7; 'We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth' (Acts, xix, 13).
To charge earnestly by word or oath (Cruden); to bind by oath, solemnly entreat, conjure' (Wright); perhaps rather to charge or entreat as if under oath, cf. "The earnest intreaty of my friends daily requesting, importuning, and as it were adjuring me' (T, Morley, 1597: O.E.D.). Deriving from the original sense, 'to put (a person) to his oath, to impose an oath upon' (as in I Kings, xviii, 10; I Samuel, xiv, 28; Joshua, vi, 26; but apparently not in the N.T.): from L. adjurare, 'to swear to (a thing)', hence in late L., 'to put (a person) to an oath'.

admiration. 'And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration* (Revelation, xvi, 6).
Cf. 'Admiration is the daughter of Ignorance' (Fuller, 1642: O.E.D.).
I.e., astonishment: a sense common in C. 16-17. Via Fr. from L. admiratio, itself from admirari, 'to wonder at'.

adventure oneself. 'And certain of the chief —i.e. the chief men—'of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theatre (Acts, xix, 31).
To risk oneself, i.e. to venture: this sense, which arose in C. 14, was common in C. 15-17, rare in C. 18, archaic in C. 19, and obsolete in C. 20.
From Old Fr. aventurer, itself from the noun aventure (our adventure), which represents L. (res) adventura, (a thing), 'about to happen' (to a person), from advenire, 'to happen'. Cf. 'Thinking it unwise to adventure themselves abroad' (Potter, 1697: O.E.D.).

adversary, x, adj., 'adverse, opposing', hence 'inimical, hostile', as in 'armed against all adversary powers' (heading to 2 Corinthians, x).
2, n. 'Opponent (in a lawsuit), as in Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison' (Matthew, v, 25; cf. Luke, xii, 58, and xviii, 3).
The adj., deriving from the n., was current in late C. 14-18; in C. 19-20, extant only in law (adversary suit, a law-case in which an opposing party appears).
The n. comes from the L. adj., adversarius, opposed, opponent', itself from adversus, 'against'. The Adversary is the foe of mankind, i.e. the Devil; as in i Peter, v, 8, 'Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour': Gr. Test., ὁ ἀντἰδιΧος νμῶν δἰαβολος, ὡς λέων ὠϱνόμενος, πεϱωιατεῖ ξητῶν τινὰ ϰαταπιεῖν: Vulgate, 'adversarius vester diabolus tanquam leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quam devoret'.

affect; affectioned; affections. 'They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them' (Galatians, iv, 17); 'Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love . . (Romans, xii, 10); 'And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts' (Galatians, v, 24)—cf. Romans, i, 26 ('vile affections'). Affect here—'show a liking for' (mid C. 16-early 19): via Fr., from L. affectare, 'to aim at'; affectioned—'disposed', esp. 'well disposed' (ca. 1530-1700); from affection +ed; prob. on Fr. affectionné; affections here='passions'; via Fr. from L. affectio, "disposition, inclination'.

after. According to. See quotation at certify, and cf the first quotation at mortify.
This sense, which corresponds to Fr, d'aprés (lit., from after'), is archaic.

agree to. 'Thou art a Galilæan, and thy speech agreeth thereto' (Mark xiv, 70); 'To him they agreed' (Acts, v, 40); 'To this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written' (ibid., xv, 15). To agree with a person, as in the second quotation; with what has been written, as in the third; and with a fact, as in the first.
Agree to (or unto) belongs to C. 16-18, and its sense, defined more precisely, is "to be consistent with, to correspond with', as in the first and third quotations; or, as in the second, 'to accede to the opinion of (a person)', which merges with the sense of agree with, 'to concur with (a person)'.
Via Old Fr. agréer, and ultimately from L. gratus, 'agreeable* (O.E.D.); the construction agree to is in imitation of the Fr. agréer a.

alien. '(Who) turned to night—i.e., put to flight—the armies of the aliens' (Hebrews, xi, 34): i.e., of the foreigners.— 'At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel' (Ephesians, ii, 12): i.e., 'persons excluded from (the citizenship and privileges of a nation)', as the O.E.D. makes clear: a theological and religious-history sense.

Alien, n., is the adj. used absolutely or substantivized. Via Old Fr. al(l)ien from L. alienus, 'belonging to another person' (cf. Shakespeare's 'Every alien pen hath got my use', Sonnet 78), hence 'belonging to another place' (O.E.D.).

allow. 'Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres' (Luke, xi, 48).
I.e., that ye sanction, approve, the deeds of your fathers. This allow comes, via Fr., from L. allaudare, 'to praise'; and the two nuances—'approve', 'sanction'—were current in C. 14-18, this sense being contemporary with the very closely allied one, 'to praise, to commend'. (The other allow—'to grant or bestow; to give credit for'—comes, via the same Old Fr. alouer, from L. allocate, 'to allocate' (O.E.D.).

alms; almsdeed. Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms' (Acts., iii, 3); "Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did' (ibid., ix, 36).
An alms (for properly and originally the word is a singular) is a charitable donation, a gift of charity, as here. In Acts, x, 4, 'Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial •before God', alms is a plural, with sense 'things given in charity' (Gr. ἐλεημοσύναι). Alms comes via Germanic from a Low Latin perversion of L. elemosina, which = Gr. ἐλεημοσύνη, 'compassionateness'. An almsdeed (better alms-deed) is a deed of charity to the poor, esp. if for a religious motive; the word is archaic.

amazed; amazement. 'And he taketh with them Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy' (sorrowful), Mark, xiv, 33; 'Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement' (1 Peter, iii, 6).
I.e., bewildered; bewilderment, confusion: common in late C. 16-mid 18. 'To amaze is from maze, 'a state of bewilderment'; the a is almost certainly an intensive. Amazement derives from that verb.
The C. 20 ascending scale is: surprise—astonishment—amazement—astoundment (rare) or astoundedness (uncommon); surprised—astonished—amazed-—astounded. Note that wonder (wonderment), which connotes thought, reflection, stands apart.

ambassage. Or else, whiie the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace' (Luke, xiv, 32). An embassy: from L. ambo, 'both'.

amethyst. See the quotation at chrysolite.
In C. 13-16, ametist(e), amatist, amatyst(e), on the analogy of its immediate origin, the Old Fr, ametiste (or amatiste). In the late C. 16, the English word 'began to be refashioned after the Latin' amethystus, which is a transliteration of the Gr. adj. ἀμέθνστος, 'not drunken', from the privative a and μεθὑσϰειν, 'to intoxicate': 'from a notion that it was a preventive of intoxication' (O.E.D.), or from the fact that 'the best specimens are the colour of unmixed wine' (Souter).

anon. 'But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it' (Matthew, xiii, 20); cf. Mark, i, 20.
At once; instantly; immediately; straightway, forthwith. From O.E. on ane, 'in one', i.e. in one m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Dedication
• PREFACE
• Contents
• ABBREVIATIONS
• GLOSSARY