Word study

Dare

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: dare, dared, dares. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “dare” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • יָכֹל yâkôlbe able, have power, prevail, enduretranslated this way 3 times of its 116 uses · Strong’s H3201Verb  ·  Translated: able 17, could 11, prevail 10, can 9

    2 Samuel 3:11 And for fear of Abner, Ish-bosheth did not dare to say another word to him.

    Lamentations 4:14 They wandered blind in the streets, defiled by this blood, so that no one dared to touch their garments.

    Full study and all 113 verses →
  • קוּם qûmarise, stand up, standtranslated this way 2 times of its 594 uses · Strong’s H6965Verb  ·  Translated: rise 68, got 61, set 44, Get 42

    Genesis 49:9 Judah is a young lion— my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

    Numbers 24:9 He crouches, he lies down like a lion, like a lioness— who dares to rouse him? Blessed are those who bless you and cursed are those who curse you.”

    Full study and all 570 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • τολμάω tolmáōI dare, endure, am boldtranslated this way 11 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s G5111Verb  ·  Translated: dare 6, dared 4, presume 2, boldly 1

    Matthew 22:46 No one was able to answer a word, and from that day on no one dared to question Him any further.

    Mark 12:34 When Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely, He said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one dared to question Him any further.

    Full study and all 14 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.