Word study

Youngest

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קָטָן qâṭânsmall, young, unimportanttranslated this way 14 times of its 99 uses · Strong’s H6996Adjective  ·  Translated: small 28, younger 14, youngest 13, least 13

    Genesis 9:24 When Noah awoke from his drunkenness and learned what his youngest son had done to him,

    Judges 9:5 He went to his father’s house in Ophrah, and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, survived, because he hid himself.

    Full study and all 98 verses →
  • צָעִיר tsâîrlittle, insignificant, youngtranslated this way 5 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s H6810Adjective  ·  Translated: younger 6, youngest 4, little 4

    Genesis 43:33 They were seated before Joseph in order by age, from the firstborn to the youngest, and the men looked at one another in astonishment.

    Joshua 6:26 At that time Joshua invoked this solemn oath: “Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho; at the cost of his firstborn he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.”

    Full study and all 23 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • νέος néosyoung, new, freshtranslated this way 1 time of its 24 uses · Strong’s G3501Adjective  ·  Translated: new 11, younger 7, young 3, youngest 1

    Luke 22:26 But you shall not be like them. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who leads like the one who serves.

    Full study and all 21 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.