Word study

Worse

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אַף aphalso, yeatranslated this way 3 times of its 110 uses · Strong’s H637Conjunction  ·  Translated: and 12, indeed 10, much more 9, much less 7

    Proverbs 17:7 Eloquent words are unfit for a fool; how much worse are lying lips to a ruler!

    Ezekiel 14:21 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments— sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague— in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

    Full study and all 102 verses →
  • רָעַע râabe evil, badtranslated this way 2 times of its 97 uses · Strong’s H7489Verb  ·  Translated: wicked 9, harm 8, evil 8, evildoers 8

    Genesis 19:9 “Get out of the way!” they replied. And they declared, “This one came here as a foreigner, and he is already acting like a judge! Now we will treat you worse than them.” And they pressed in on Lot and moved in to break down the door.

    2 Samuel 19:7 Now therefore get up! Go out and speak comfort to your servants, for I swear by the LORD that if you do not go out, not a man will remain with you tonight. This will be worse for you than all the adversity that has befallen you from your youth until now!”

    Full study and all 97 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • χείρων cheírōnworsetranslated this way 10 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s G5501Adjective  ·  Translated: worse 10, more severely 1

    Matthew 9:16 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result.

    Mark 2:21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result.

    Full study and all 11 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.