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
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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From the word to the Word
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