Word study

Sail

2 Hebrew and 5 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: sail, sailed, sailing. 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 “sail” 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)

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀνάγω anágōI lead up, put to sea, set sailtranslated this way 11 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s G321Verb  ·  Translated: sail 4, brought 3, sailed 3, set sail 3

    Acts 13:13 After setting sail from Paphos, Paul and his companions came to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.

    Acts 16:11 We sailed from Troas straight to Samothrace, and the following day on to Neapolis.

    Full study and all 23 verses →
  • πλέω pléōI sailtranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G4126Verb  ·  Translated: sailed 2, sail 2, sailing 1

    Luke 8:23 As they sailed, He fell asleep, and a windstorm came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.

    Acts 21:3 After sighting Cyprus and passing south of it, we sailed on to Syria and landed at Tyre, where the ship was to unload its cargo.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • ἀποπλέω apopléōI sail awaytranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G636Verb  ·  Translated: sailed 2, Sailing 1, sail 1

    Acts 13:4 So Barnabas and Saul, sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.

    Acts 14:26 From Attalia they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had just completed.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • ἐκπλέω ekpléōI sail out, sail awaytranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G1602Verb  ·  Translated: sailed 3

    Acts 15:39 Their disagreement was so sharp that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,

    Acts 18:18 Paul remained in Corinth for quite some time before saying goodbye to the brothers. He had his head shaved in Cenchrea to keep a vow he had made , and then he sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • ὑποπλέω hypopléōI sail undertranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G5284Verb  ·  Translated: sailed to the lee 2

    Acts 27:4 After putting out from there, we sailed to the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us.

    Acts 27:7 After sailing slowly for many days, we arrived off Cnidus. When the wind impeded us, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.

    Full study and all 2 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.