περισσός (perissós) describes what is more, greater, beyond a measure, abundant, unnecessary, or excessive. Many of its twenty-two governed forms are comparative, so the comparison named by the sentence matters.
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Full entry for περισσός (G4053) · Open the biblical lexicon
περισσός (perissós) describes what is more, greater, beyond a measure, abundant, unnecessary, or excessive. Many of its twenty-two governed forms are comparative, so the comparison named by the sentence matters.
The BSB source-word alignment has 22 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include more (5), greater (3), . . . (1), advantage (1), even more (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:37. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (4), Luke (4), Mark (4), 2 Corinthians (3).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
G4053 describes what is more, greater, beyond a measure, abundant, unnecessary, or excessive. Many of its twenty-two governed forms are comparative, so the comparison named by the sentence matters. The word can describe greater honor, harder work, clearer evidence, more severe judgment, unnecessary writing, excessive sorrow, or abundant life. It does not make abundance morally good, excess morally evil, or one person intrinsically superior.
John 10:10 uses an adverbial form for the life Jesus gives in contrast to the thief who steals, kills, and destroys. The verse promises life in abundance through the shepherd, not wealth, health, social status, constant happiness, or insulation from suffering. Matthew 5 uses the adjective for speech beyond a truthful yes or no and for greeting beyond one's own circle. These sayings concern truthful integrity and enemy-love, not a ban on every careful explanation or a formula for earning God's favor.
Romans 3:1 asks about Jewish advantage and immediately answers that there is much in every way because Jewish people were entrusted with God's words. The question cannot support anti-Jewish contempt or the erasure of Israel's gifts. First Corinthians 12 gives greater honor to members treated as less honorable, while 15:10 describes Paul's harder labor and immediately attributes it to grace. Second Corinthians 2 warns against excessive sorrow after discipline and calls for forgiveness, comfort, and reaffirmed love. These texts resist status hierarchy, spiritual competition, harsh discipline, and shame that overwhelms a repentant person.
Twenty-two governed forms in twenty-one verses compare speech, welcome, prophetic importance, fear, accountability, honor, labor, sorrow, authority, generosity, priesthood, and life.
That they may have life, and have it in all its fullness
Abundance is governed by Jesus' identity and shepherding purpose in contrast to theft and destruction.
We treat with greater honor
Both governed forms direct special honor toward members commonly treated as less honorable.
Overwhelmed by excessive sorrow
The comparative warns that discipline can exceed its restorative purpose and calls the church to comfort and reaffirm love.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Abundance exceeding what is necessary or expected; surplus beyond requirement or common measure.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 26 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
abundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
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Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
Read verseabundant, greater, vehemently, advantage
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.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
περισσός is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G4053 is not a free-standing promise that believers will always receive more. It is a contextual comparison word. Jesus uses it for speech that exceeds truthful simplicity, love that extends beyond one's own circle, greater prophetic significance, differing accountability, and life abundantly supplied by the shepherd. Paul asks about Israel's real advantage, gives greater honor to neglected members, attributes harder work to grace, and warns that sorrow after discipline can become excessive.
Hebrews uses the comparative to sharpen its argument about promise and priesthood. Responsible teaching therefore asks, more than what, greater in what respect, abundant toward what end, and excessive by whose measure. That discipline protects the text from prosperity claims, hierarchy, competition, and punitive excess.
John.10.10
The governed table contains twenty-two tokens across nine parse labels, including comparative adjective forms, three non-comparative neuter nominatives, one neuter accusative, and two adverbial uses. First Corinthians 12:23 has two feminine accusative comparatives with different functions in the same verse.
Israel's Scriptures compare wisdom, honor, sacrifice, justice, covenant privilege, and life under God's care. Those themes inform the New Testament, but G4053 is not a technical equivalent of one Hebrew word and does not assign the same moral value to every greater quantity.