Word study

Tail

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: tail, tails. 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 “tail” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • זָנָב zânâbtail, also (figurative) end, stumptranslated this way 8 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H2180Noun  ·  Translated: tail 7, foxes tail-to-tail 1, tails 1, stubs 1

    Exodus 4:4 “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail,” the LORD said to Moses, who reached out his hand and caught the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand.

    Deuteronomy 28:13 The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • אַלְיָה alyâhfat tailtranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H451Noun  ·  Translated: fat tail 5

    Exodus 29:22 Take the fat from the ram, the fat tail, the fat covering the entrails, the lobe of the liver, both kidneys with the fat on them, and the right thigh (since this is a ram for ordination),

    Leviticus 3:9 And from the peace offering he shall bring a food offering to the LORD consisting of its fat: the entire fat tail cut off close to the backbone, the fat that covers the entrails, all the fat that is on them,

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • οὐρά ouráa tailtranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3769Noun  ·  Translated: tails 3, tail 1

    Revelation 9:10 They had tails with stingers like scorpions, which had the power to injure people for five months.

    Revelation 9:19 For the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; indeed, their tails were like snakes, having heads with which to inflict harm.

    Full study and all 3 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.