What does πολυτελής (polytelḗs) mean in the Bible?
πολυτελής (polytelḗs): Costly luxury item commanding high price; used metaphorically for spiritual beauty surpassing material value.
Greek · G4185
πολυτελής
Extremely expensive
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πολυτελής G4185
Pronunciation polytelḗs
What does πολυτελής (polytelḗs) mean in the Bible?
πολυτελής (polytelḗs): Costly luxury item commanding high price; used metaphorically for spiritual beauty surpassing material value.
Full entry for πολυτελής (G4185) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G4185?
The BSB source-word alignment has 3 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include expensive (1), of expensive (1), precious (1).
Where does πολυτελής (polytelḗs) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Mark 14:3. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Peter (1), 1 Timothy (1), Mark (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 expensive 1× 1 Timothy 2:9
of expensive 1× Mark 14:3
precious 1× 1 Peter 3:4
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Mark 14:3
Aligned rows 3
Books represented 3
Mark 1 1 Timothy 1 1 Peter 1
Source forms
πολυτελεῖ 1x polytelei 1 Timothy 2:9
πολυτελές 1x polyteles 1 Peter 3:4
πολυτελοῦς 1x polytelous Mark 14:3
Parsing patterns
Adjective - Dative Masculine Singular 1x 1 Timothy 2:9
Adjective - Genitive Feminine Singular 1x Mark 14:3
Adjective - Nominative Neuter Singular 1x 1 Peter 3:4
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Costly luxury item commanding high price; used metaphorically for spiritual beauty surpassing material value.
Strong's G4185
Lexical occurrences 3 verses Greek text appearances 3 times Word forms 3 forms 3 references Verse guides 0 guides
Study link Proverbs 8:1-11 Source Gloss
extremely expensive
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
3 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Mark 14:3 Adjective Genitive Singular Feminine
πολυτελοῦς· polutelouv
very costly, very precious
Read verse 1 Timothy 2:9 Adjective Dative Singular Masculine
πολυτελεῖ, polutelei
very costly, very precious
Read verse 1 Peter 3:4 Adjective Nominative Singular Neuter
πολυτελές. polutelev
very costly, very precious
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 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.
Form patterns 3 Aligned forms 3 Case pattern Dative (1) Number pattern Singular (3)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Singular · Neuter 1 Pet 3:4 1×
Genitive · Singular · Feminine Mark 14:3 1×
Dative · Singular · Masculine 1 Tim 2:9 1×
Selected Scripture Witness
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Biblical Witnesses
Wisdom described as valuable and costly, surpassing material wealth
Showing 1 selected witness from 3 lexical occurrence verses.
Word Origins
πολυτελής is built from these roots:
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.
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