Word study
Mere
8 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: mere, mered, meres. 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 “mere” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- דָּבָר dâbârspeech, wordtranslated this way 2 times of its 1,244 uses · Strong’s H1697Noun · Translated: word 342, words 299, acts 51, Chronicles 42Full study and all 1,120 verses →
- מֶרֶד MeredMeredtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4778Noun · Translated: Mered 2Full study and all 2 verses →
1 Chronicles 4:17 The sons of Ezrah: Jether, Mered, Epher, and Jalon. And Mered’s wife Bithiah gave birth to Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa.
1 Chronicles 4:18 These were the children of Pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah. Mered also took a Judean wife, who gave birth to Jered the father of Gedor, Heber the father of Soco, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah.
- כֶּלֶב kelebdogtranslated this way 1 time of its 32 uses · Strong’s H3611Noun · Translated: dogs 15, dog 9, like dogs 2Full study and all 31 verses →
2 Kings 8:13 “But how could your servant, a mere dog, do such a monstrous thing?” said Hazael. And Elisha answered, “The LORD has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”
- אֱנוֹשׁ ĕnôshman, mankindtranslated this way 1 time of its 470 uses · Strong’s H582Noun · Translated: men 368, man 25, people 5, husbands 4Full study and all 447 verses →
2 Chronicles 14:11 Then Asa cried out to the LORD his God: “O LORD, there is no one besides You to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on You, and in Your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God. Do not let a mere mortal prevail against You.”
- נַעַר naara shaking, scatteringtranslated this way 1 time of its 227 uses · Strong’s H5288Noun · Translated: boy 48, young men 30, young man 27, servant 25Full study and all 214 verses →
Isaiah 3:4 “I will make mere lads their leaders, and children will rule over them.”
- אַךְ aksurelytranslated this way 1 time of its 138 uses · Strong’s H389Adverb · Translated: but 31, Surely 29, only 11, Nevertheless 7Full study and all 135 verses →
Isaiah 19:11 The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”?
- בָּשָׂר bâsârfleshtranslated this way 1 time of its 231 uses · Strong’s H1320Noun · Translated: flesh 91, meat 59, body 22, himself 8Full study and all 212 verses →
- מֶרֶס MeresMerestranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H4825Noun · Translated: Meres 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Esther 1:14 His closest advisors were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had personal access to the king and ranked highest in the kingdom.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἄνθρωπος ánthrōposa man, one of the human racetranslated this way 1 time of its 479 uses · Strong’s G444Noun · Translated: man 290, men 127, people 14, man's 8Full study and all 444 verses →
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.