Bible word study

Kowc (Strong’s H3563): Meaning in the Bible

Kowc (כּוֹס) is the Hebrew word numbered H3563 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as a cup (as a container), often figuratively, a lot (as if a potion); also some unclean bird, probably an owl (perhaps from the cup-like cavity of its eye). In the King James Bible it is translated cup, (small) owl. Compare H3599..

• Original wordכּוֹס
• Transliterationkôwç
• Pronunciationkoce
• Part of speechnoun (feminine) (n-f)
• Strong’s numberH3563
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from an unused root meaning to hold together;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Kowc appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Kowc (H3563) stands behind 34 English renderings in 29 verses across 13 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Jeremiah (7), Psalms (6), Genesis (5).

How the King James Bible renders Kowc, by count

• cup30 of 34 (88 percent)
• owl3 of 34 (9 percent)
• cups1 of 34 (3 percent)

Three places to read Kowc

• Genesis 40:11 And Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.
• Psalms 16:5 The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.
• Jeremiah 25:17 Then took I the cup at the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:

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 Kowc in the original Hebrew 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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