Word study
Fawn
5 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: fawns, fawn. 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 “fawn” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עֹפֶר ôpheryoung hart, stagtranslated this way 2 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H6082Noun · Translated: young 2, fawns 2, young stag 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Song of Solomon 4:5 Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.
Song of Solomon 7:3 Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
- אֵמֶר êmersomething saidtranslated this way 1 time of its 49 uses · Strong’s H561Noun · Translated: words 38, arguments 2Full study and all 47 verses →
Genesis 49:21 Naphtali is a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns.
- חוּל chûlwhirl, dance, writhetranslated this way 1 time of its 58 uses · Strong’s H2342Verb · Translated: brought forth 6, tremble 5, labor 3, waited 2Full study and all 55 verses →
Job 39:1 “Do you know when mountain goats give birth? Have you watched the doe bear her fawn?
- יַעֲלָה yaălâhtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H3280Noun · Translated: fawn 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Proverbs 5:19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.
- יָלַד yâladbear, bring forth, begettranslated this way 1 time of its 484 uses · Strong’s H3205Verb · Translated: father 111, born 57, bore 52, gave birth 44Full study and all 395 verses →
Jeremiah 14:5 Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.