What does μάτην (mátēn) mean in the Bible?
μάτην (mátēn): Futile effort or speech that fails to achieve its intended purpose or desired result.
Greek · G3155
μάτην
μάτην (mátēn): Futile effort or speech that fails to achieve its intended purpose or desired result.
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μάτηνG3155
Pronunciationmátēn
What does μάτην (mátēn) mean in the Bible?
Full entry for μάτην (G3155) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G3155?
The BSB source-word alignment has 2 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include in vain (2).
Where does μάτην (mátēn) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 15:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Mark (1), Matthew (1).
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders Itin vain2×Matthew 15:9, Mark 7:7
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned rowMatthew 15:9
Aligned rows2
Books represented2
Matthew1Mark1
Source forms
Μάτην2xMatēnMatthew 15:9, Mark 7:7
Parsing patterns
Adverb2xMatthew 15:9, Mark 7:7
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Futile effort or speech that fails to achieve its intended purpose or desired result.
Strong'sG3155
Lexical occurrences2 versesGreek text appearances2 timesWord forms1 form2 referencesVerse guides0 guides
Study linkProverbs 26:2Source Gloss
in vain
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
2 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Matthew 15:9Adverb
μάτηνmathn
in vain
Read verseMark 7:7Adverb
μάτηνmathn
in vain
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
Grammatical Forms
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Form patterns1Aligned forms2
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Matt 15:9 · Mark 7:72×
Selected Scripture Witness
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Biblical Witnesses
Curse that comes without cause has no effect, accomplishes nothing
Showing 1 selected witness from 2 lexical occurrence verses.
Word Origins
μάτην is built from this root:
Part of These Phrases
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.