What does νόθος (nóthos) mean in the Bible?
νόθος (nóthos): Illegitimate child born outside proper marriage, used metaphorically for false spiritual sonship.
Greek · G3541
νόθος
A spurious or illegitimate son
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νόθος G3541
Pronunciation nóthos
What does νόθος (nóthos) mean in the Bible?
νόθος (nóthos): Illegitimate child born outside proper marriage, used metaphorically for false spiritual sonship.
Full entry for νόθος (G3541) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G3541?
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include illegitimate children (1).
Where does νόθος (nóthos) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Hebrews 12:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Hebrews (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 It illegitimate children 1× Hebrews 12:8
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Hebrews 12:8
Aligned rows 1
Books represented 1
Hebrews 1
Source forms
νόθοι 1x nothoi Hebrews 12:8
Parsing patterns
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Plural 1x Hebrews 12:8
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Illegitimate child born outside proper marriage, used metaphorically for false spiritual sonship.
Strong's G3541
Lexical occurrences 1 verse Greek text appearances 1 time Word forms 1 form 1 reference Verse guides 0 guides
Study link Hebrews 12:4-11 Source Gloss
a spurious or illegitimate son
Extended definition Source: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Illegitimate child born outside proper marriage, used metaphorically for false spiritual sonship.
a bastard, base born, i.e. born of a slave or concubine: Heb.12:8.
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Hebrews 12:8 Adjective Nominative Plural Masculine
νόθοι noqoi
illegitimate, bastard
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 patterns 1 Aligned forms 1 Case pattern Nominative (1) Number pattern Plural (1)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Plural · Masculine Heb 12:8 1×
Where It Appears in Scripture
Where this word appears in Scripture: passage, original form, and sense in context.
New Testament Witnesses
illegitimate children
Word Origins
νόθος is of uncertain origin - no further derivation.
Why This Word Matters
Contrasts true sonship with absence of discipline. Hebrews 12:4-11
Sources
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain