What does σκύβαλον (skýbalon) mean in the Bible?
σκύβαλον (skýbalon): Worthless refuse or dung; Paul's metaphor for spiritual loss when gained for Christ's sake.
Greek · G4657
σκύβαλον
Garbage
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σκύβαλονG4657
Pronunciationskýbalon
What does σκύβαλον (skýbalon) mean in the Bible?
σκύβαλον (skýbalon): Worthless refuse or dung; Paul's metaphor for spiritual loss when gained for Christ's sake.
Full entry for σκύβαλον (G4657) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G4657?
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include rubbish (1).
Where does σκύβαλον (skýbalon) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Philippians 3:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Philippians (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 Itrubbish1×Philippians 3:8
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned rowPhilippians 3:8
Aligned rows1
Books represented1
Philippians1
Source forms
σκύβαλα1xskybalaPhilippians 3:8
Parsing patterns
Noun - Accusative Neuter Plural1xPhilippians 3:8
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Worthless refuse or dung; Paul's metaphor for spiritual loss when gained for Christ's sake.
Strong'sG4657
Lexical occurrences1 verseGreek text appearances1 timeWord forms1 form1 referenceVerse guides0 guides
Source Gloss
garbage
Extended definitionSource: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Worthless refuse or dung; Paul's metaphor for spiritual loss when gained for Christ's sake.
refuse, esp. dung (see MM, ii, iii, xxiii): Php.3:8.
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Philippians 3:8Noun Accusative Plural Neuter
σκύβαλαskubala
refuse, dregs
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 forms1Case patternAccusative (1)Number patternPlural (1)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Accusative · Plural · NeuterPhil 3:81×
Word Origins
σκύβαλον is built from these roots: