Bible word study

Sykophanteo (Strong’s G4811): Meaning in the Bible

Sykophanteo (συκοφαντέω) is the Greek word numbered G4811 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as to be a fig-informer (reporter of the law forbidding the exportation of figs from Greece), "sycophant", i.e. (genitive and by extension) to defraud (exact unlawfully, extort). In the King James Bible it is translated accuse falsely, take by false accusation..

• Original wordσυκοφαντέω
• Transliterationsykophantéō
• Pronunciationsoo-kof-an-teh'-o
• Strong’s numberG4811
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from a compound of G4810 and a derivative of G5316;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Sykophanteo appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Sykophanteo (G4811) stands behind 4 English renderings in 2 verses across 1 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Luke (4).

How the King James Bible renders Sykophanteo, by count

• accusation1 of 4 (25 percent)
• accuse1 of 4 (25 percent)
• falsely1 of 4 (25 percent)
• taken1 of 4 (25 percent)

Three places to read Sykophanteo

• Luke 3:14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
• Luke 19:8 And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Sykophanteo in the original Greek lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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