What does βασιλικός (basilikós) mean in the Bible?
βασιλικός (basilikós): Royal authority; often denotes supreme law governing other laws with regal character.
Greek · G937
βασιλικός
Royal
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βασιλικός G937
Pronunciation basilikós
What does βασιλικός (basilikós) mean in the Bible?
βασιλικός (basilikós): Royal authority; often denotes supreme law governing other laws with regal character.
Full entry for βασιλικός (G937) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G937?
The BSB source-word alignment has 5 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include [his] royal (1), [the] royal (1), king’s [country] (1), official (1), royal official (1).
Where does βασιλικός (basilikós) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 4:46. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (2), John (2), James (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 [his] royal 1× Acts 12:21
[the] royal 1× James 2:8
king’s [country] 1× Acts 12:20
official 1× John 4:49
royal official 1× John 4:46
Show sample aligned rows
John 4:46 βασιλικὸς to royal official Adjective - Nominative Masculine Singular John 4:49 βασιλικός to official Adjective - Nominative Masculine Singular Acts 12:20 βασιλικῆς to king’s [country] Adjective - Genitive Feminine Singular Acts 12:21 βασιλικὴν to [his] royal Adjective - Accusative Feminine Singular James 2:8 βασιλικὸν to [the] royal Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row John 4:46
Aligned rows 5
Books represented 3
John 2 Acts 2 James 1
Source forms
βασιλικὴν 1x basilikēn Acts 12:21
βασιλικῆς 1x basilikēs Acts 12:20
βασιλικὸν 1x basilikon James 2:8
βασιλικός 1x basilikos John 4:49
βασιλικὸς 1x basilikos John 4:46
Parsing patterns
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Singular 2x John 4:46, John 4:49
Adjective - Accusative Feminine Singular 1x Acts 12:21
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular 1x James 2:8
Adjective - Genitive Feminine Singular 1x Acts 12:20
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Royal authority; often denotes supreme law governing other laws with regal character.
Strong's G937
Lexical occurrences 5 verses Greek text appearances 5 times Word forms 4 forms 5 references Verse guides 0 guides
Source Gloss
royal
Extended definition Source: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Royal authority; often denotes supreme law governing other laws with regal character.
royal, belonging to a king: χώρα, Act 12:20; ἐσθής, Act.12:21; νόμος β., a supreme law, "a law which governs other laws and so has a specially regal character" (Hort), or because made by a king (LAE, p. 3673), Jas.2:8; τις, one in the service of a king, a courtier, Jhn.4:46, 49 (WH, mg., βασιλίσκος).
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
5 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
John 4:46 Adjective Nominative Singular Masculine
βασιλικός, basilikov
connected with a king, royal, regal
Read verse John 4:49 Adjective Nominative Singular Masculine
βασιλικός, basilikov
connected with a king, royal, regal
Read verse Acts 12:20 Adjective Genitive Singular Feminine
βασιλικῆς. basilikhv
connected with a king, royal, regal
Read verse Acts 12:21 Adjective Accusative Singular Feminine
βασιλικήν, basilikhn
connected with a king, royal, regal
Read verse James 2:8 Adjective Accusative Singular Masculine
βασιλικόν, basilikon
connected with a king, royal, regal
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 4 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 4 Aligned forms 5 Case pattern Accusative (2) Number pattern Singular (5)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Singular · Masculine John 4:46 · John 4:49 2×
Genitive · Singular · Feminine Acts 12:20 1×
Accusative · Singular · Feminine Acts 12:21 1×
Accusative · Singular · Masculine Jas 2:8 1×
Selected Scripture Witness
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Witnesses
John 4:43-54 βασιλικός basilikós
royal official
Showing 1 selected witness from 5 lexical occurrence verses.
Word Origins
βασιλικός is built from this root:
Why This Word Matters
Shows gospel reaching into political authority structures.
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