English Language Words/Phrases | Houston Baptist University

English Language Words/Phrases

Words or Phrases First Introduced Into the English Language in Early English Bible Translations [1]

The first recorded use of many of the words used in ordinary English today can be found in the early translations of the Bible into English. When John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English from Jerome's Latin Vulgate in the fourteenth century, he enlarged the English language by adapting many Latin words into his English Bible. The words treasure and mystery, glory and horror, female and sex all owe their English usage to Wycliffe's Bible. Tyndale, translating from the Hebrew and Greek in the 16th century, did not borrow as much from the Latin as did Wycliffe. He did coin words from the Dutch and Germanic sources (after all, he did his translation work while in those two countries) as well as French. Beautiful and ungodly were such words. Many of Tyndale's coined words were compound words, such as fisherman, castaway, and busybody. Both of Wycliffe's and Tyndale's translations included phrases which readily entered the language with their Bible translations - phrases like a city on a hill, my brother's keeper, ye of little faith, salt of the earth, and thirty pieces of silver. Below is a chart of words and phrases coined by the early English translators of the Bible.

Wycliffe's translation from the Vulgate (1382/88)

Word	Bible Passage	Derivation
female	Genesis 1:27	Jerome's Vulgate used Latin femina. Wycliffe's female was based on the related Latin word, femella. The English word male had first appeared 7 years earlier.
sex	Genesis 6:19	Jerome's Latin uses sexus here. Later translations replace "sex" with "kind".
Sodom and Gomorrah	Genesis 13:10
childbearing	Genesis 25:24	Compounded of the Old English noun cild ("child") and the verb beran ("to carry or bear"). KJV later uses the word in I Timothy 2:15.
wrinkle	Genesis 38:14	Wycliffe describes Tamar as wearing "a rocket cloth with many wrynclis". It probably comes from wrinclod, past participle of the verb wrinclian, meaning "to wind about." This verb is also source of our verb "to wring". Tyndale later used the word in Ephesians 5:27, "without spot or wrinkle."
affliction	Exodus 3:7	Derived from the Latin prefix ad ("to") and the root figere ("to strike or beat against")
graven image	Exodus 20:4	Wycliffe's spelling: grauuen ymage
needlework	Exodus 26:1	Coined by Wycliffe. KJV later uses "cunning work." Other translations used the French derivative broidery.
consume	Leviticus 16:23	The Latin root sumere derives from emere "to buy", which is also the root of redeem.
firstfruits	Numbers 18:12	Coined by Wycliffe. The Latin Vulgate equivalent, primitiae was used in Exodus 23:16.
cast	Numbers 35:17
grasp	Deuteronomy 28:29	Related to the Old Norse grapa (from which come "grab", "grip", "gripe".)
horror	Deuteronomy 32:10; Ezekiel 32:10	From Latin Vulgate's in loco horroris. The Latin verb horrere means "to bristle or shudder" and was associated with a forbidding terrain.
shibboleth	Judges 12:6
problem	Judges 14:15	From Jerome's problema. This had been translated into the Latin from Greek, the prefix pro ("forward") and the root verb ballein ("to throw").
affinity	Ruth 3:13	From the Latin affinis, a combination of ad ("to") and finis ("border" or "limit").
mutter	II Samuel 12:19	From the Middle English moteren. Later English translations use "whispering".
seer	I Samuel 9:9	Old English seon ("to see"). Luther used the related Germanic Seher.
zealous	I Kings 19:3	From Latin noun zelus and Greek zelos, meaning "ardent feeling."
botch	II Chronicles 34:1; Isaiah 30:6; Deuteronomy 28:27.	To repair or patch. From Old French boce ("lump", "boil", "swelling.")
scrape	Job 2:8	From Old English screpan, sharing the Indo-European root sker, from which come sharo, shear, and scorpion.
wordy	Job 16:21
contradiction	Psalms 54:10	From Old French; a combination of Latin contra ("against") and diccere ("to speak")
glory	Proverbs 17:6; Luke 2:14; Romans 1:23; I Corinthians 10:31.	From Latin Vulgate (gloria) and the French (glorie).
bundle	Song of Solomon 1:12	Probably from the Middle Dutch binden, meaning "to bind."
treasure	Isaiah 39:6	From Latin thesaurus in Jerome's Vulgate.
childbearing	Isaiah 49:21	From Old English cild ("child") and beran ("to carry or to bear").
feel	Isaiah 59:10	From Old English felan, meaning "to grope".
doubtful	Ezekiel 12:24	Adjective from Old French verb douter.
irrevocable	Ezekiel 21:5	From Jerome's Latin irrecovabilis.
ministry	Ezekiel 44:13; Colossians 4:17.	From Vulgate use of word for "office," ministerium
liquid	Ezekiel 44:30	From Latin liquere.
transfer	Ezekiel 48:14	From Jerome's Vulgate, transferre.
mystery	Daniel 2:27; Romans 16:25.	From Jerome's Vulgate, mysterium.
Interpretation, interpret	Daniel 5:14; Daniel 5:16	From the Latin Vulgate.
reap the whirlwind	Hosea 8:7
puberty	Malachi 2:14	From Latin Vulgate, pubertas.
salt of the earth	Matthew 5:13
city set on a hill	Matthew 5:14
ye of little faith	Matthew 8:26
doctrine	Matthew 15:9	From Jerome's Vulgate.
keys of the kingdom	Matthew 16:19
born again	John 3:3
argument	Acts 1:13
ecstasy	Acts 3:10	From Jerome's Vulgate.
exorcist	Acts 19:13	From the Greek exorkizein.
civility	Acts 22:28	Based on the Latin Vulgate, civitatem.
crime	Acts 23:29; 25:16	From Jerome's Vulgate, crimen.
adoption	Romans 8:23	From Jerome's Vulgate, adotptionem.
conscience	I Corinthians 8:7; II Cor. 5:11; I Peter 2:19	From Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
all things to all men	I Corinthians 9:22
excellent	I Corinthians 12:31	From Latin Vulgate's excellentiorum.
ambitious	I Corinthians 13:5	From Latin Vulgate's ambitiosa.
liberty	II Corinthians 3:17	From Latin Vulgate's libertas.
legacy	II Corinthians 5:20	From Latin Vulgate.
communication	II Corinthians 9:13	From Latin Vulgate, communicationis.
allegory	Galatians 4:24	From Latin Vulgate's allegoriam, Jerome's transliteration of the original Greek allegoria.
persuasion	Galatians 5:8	From Latin.
offense; offend	Philippians 1:10; James 3:2	From the Latin Vulgate.
quiet	I Thessalonians	From Latin.
root of all evil	I Timothy 6:10
uncertainty	I Timothy 6:17	From Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
novelty	I Timothy 6:20	From Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
quick and the dead	I Peter 4:5
plague	Revelation 9:18	From Jerome's Latin Vulgate, plaga.

Tyndale's translation from the Hebrew and Greek (1525-26 & 1530/34)

Word	Bible Passage	Derivation
brother's keeper	Genesis 4:9
land of Nod	Genesis 4:16
pillar of salt	Genesis 19:26
full of days	Genesis 35:29
coat of many colors	Genesis 37:3
nurse	Exodus 2:9
stranger in a strange land	Exodus 2:22
Jehovah	Exodus 6:3	Hebrew sacred and unpronounceable divine name, YHWH, combined with the vowels for the word "Adonai," a less sacred name for God.
Passover	Exodus 12:11	His own translation of the Hebrew pesach.
sin of the fathers	Exodus 20:5
eye for eye	Exodus 21:24
scapegoat	Leviticus 16:8	A combination of escape and goat.
eat, drink, and be merry	Ecclesiastes 8:15
viper	Matthew 3:7 Acts 28:3	From Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
no man can serve two masters	Matthew 6:24
judge not	Matthew 7:1
blind lead the blind	Matthew 15:14
seventy times seven	Matthew 18:22
beautiful	Matthew 23:27	From the Latin bellus, "pretty" or "lovely" and the Old French Beltat,
housetop	Matthew 24:17	Literal translation of the Greek doma.
thirty pieces of silver	Matthew 26:14
brokenhearted	Luke 4:18	Combination of Anglo-Saxon breccan ("to break") and heorte.
fisherman	Luke 5:2	Wycliffe translated the Latin piscatores, "fishers"; Tyndale developed the compound "fishermen."
cast the first stone	John 8:7
stiff-necked	Acts 7:51
sorcerer	Acts 13:6	From the Latin root sors ("Lot," "share," "sort," as connected with fate and chance.
uproar	Acts 21:38	English variant of Dutch oproer and German Aufruhr.
undergird	Acts 27:17
ungodly	Romans 5:6	From Middle Dutch ondoelijc.
castaway	I Corinthians 9:27; II Corinthians 13:5
suffer fools gladly	II Corinthians 11:19
infidel	I Timothy 5:8	From Latin infidelis.
two-edged sword	Hebrews 4:12
seashore	Hebrews 11:12
busybody	I Peter 4:15	Compound of Old English bisig and bodig.
alpha and omega	Revelation 1:19	First and last letters of Greek alphabet.
rose-colored	Revelation 17:3

Coverdale's translation (1535)

Word	Bible Passage	Derivation
Zealous	I Kings 19:10	From Latin zelus and Greek zelos.
bloodthirsty	Psalms 25:9
daytime	Psalms 22:2
Blab	Proverbs 15:2	Old Norse blabbra and Old Dutch labben.
slaughter	Isaiah 22:13	From Old Norse slatr and Old English sleaht related to slay.
sprinkler	Jeremiah 52:18	Old English/Germanic
consumer	Malachi 3:2	From Latin.
blood money	Matthew 27:6
voiceless	Acts 8:32

Geneva Bible (1560)

Word	Bible Passage	Derivation
burnt offering	Genesis 8:20; 22:2.
network	Exodus 27:4
my cup runneth over	Psalms 23:5
stargazer	Isaiah 47:13
holier than thou	Isaiah 65:5
Ancient of Days	Daniel 7:9
house divided	Matthew 12:25
Get thee behind me, Satan	Matthew 16:23
through a glass darkly	I Corinthians 13:12

King James' Bible (1611)

Word	Bible Passage	Derivation
Not live by bread alone	Matthew 4:4

[1] Based upon Stanley Malless and Jeffrey McQuain's Coined by God. London and New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2003.

Updated 8/16/2007 - Content Author KBell