Word study

Loud

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “loud”. 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 “loud” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • גָּדוֹל gâdôlgreattranslated this way 15 times of its 501 uses · Strong’s H1419Adjective  ·  Translated: great 262, large 33, high 20, loud 14

    Genesis 27:34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!”

    Exodus 12:30 During the night Pharaoh got up — he and all his officials and all the Egyptians — and there was loud wailing in Egypt; for there was no house without someone dead.

    Full study and all 477 verses →
  • קוֹל qôlsound, voicetranslated this way 3 times of its 425 uses · Strong’s H6963Noun  ·  Translated: voice 197, sound 63, voices 22, thunder 11

    Genesis 39:14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. He came to me so he could sleep with me, but I screamed as loud as I could.

    1 Kings 1:41 Now Adonijah and all his guests were finishing their feast when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn. “Why is the city in such a loud uproar?” asked Joab.

    Full study and all 378 verses →
  • הָמָה hâmâhmurmur, growl, roar, be boisteroustranslated this way 2 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s H1993Verb  ·  Translated: roar 6, unease 3, rage 3, laments 3

    Proverbs 7:11 She is loud and defiant; her feet do not remain at home.

    Proverbs 9:13 The woman named Folly is loud; she is naive and knows nothing.

    Full study and all 31 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μέγας mégaslarge, greattranslated this way 23 times of its 218 uses · Strong’s G3173Adjective  ·  Translated: great 108, greater 29, loud 23, greatest 14

    Matthew 24:31 And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

    Luke 1:42 In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

    Full study and all 206 verses →
  • φωνή phōnḗa sound, noise, voicetranslated this way 18 times of its 136 uses · Strong’s G5456Noun  ·  Translated: voice 83, loud voice 13, sound 8, voices 8

    Matthew 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

    Mark 1:26 At this, the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and came out with a loud shriek.

    Full study and all 125 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.