Bible word study

Psuche (Strong’s G5590): Meaning in the Bible

Psuche (ψυχή) is the Greek word numbered G5590 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from G4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from G2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew H5315, H7307 and H2416). In the King James Bible it is translated heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us.

• Original wordψυχή
• Transliterationpsychḗ
• Pronunciationpsoo-khay'
• Strong’s numberG5590
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from G5594;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Psuche appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Psuche (G5590) stands behind 112 English renderings in 93 verses across 19 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Matthew (19), Luke (17), Acts (17).

How the King James Bible renders Psuche, by count

• soul38 of 112 (34 percent)
• life32 of 112 (29 percent)
• souls19 of 112 (17 percent)
• lives5 of 112 (4 percent)
• for4 of 112 (4 percent)
• minds2 of 112 (2 percent)

Three places to read Psuche

• Matthew 2:20 Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.
• Luke 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.
• Ephesians 6:6 Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;

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 Psuche 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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