Quick Definition
δειλία, ας, ἡ n.f. cowardice
Strong's Definition
timidity
Derivation: from G1169 (δειλός);
KJV Usage: fear
UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament
noun, f. | -ας | δειλιάω
25.266 · Attitudes and Emotions · Fear, Terror, Alarm
cowardice, timidity a state of fear because of a lack of courage or moral strength ‘Cowardice’ is often rendered by means of an idiom, for example, ‘to have a fallen heart,’ ‘to have a soft heart,’ or ‘one’s heart has disappeared.’
UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament © United Bible Societies, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
δειλία, -as, 7, (δειλός), timidity, fearfulness, cowardice : 2 Tim.i. 7. (Soph., [Hdt.], Eur., [Arstph.], Thuc., and subseq. writ.)
Mounce Concise Greek Dictionary
δειλία deilia 1x
timidity, 2 Tim. 1:7*
Abbott-Smith Greek Lexicon
δειλία, -ας, ἡ
(< δειλός), [in LXX for אֵימָה, מְחִתָּה, etc. ;]
cowardice, timidity (never in good sense): II Ti 1:7.†
SYN.: φόβος, fear, in general, good or bad; εὐλάβεια (q.v.), apprehension generally, but chiefly pious fear, "that careful and watchful reverence which pays regard to every circumstance in that with which it has to deal" (cf. Tr., Syn., § x).†
Trench — Synonyms of the New Testament
Or these three words the first, δειλία, is used always in a bad sense ; the second, φόβος, is a middle term, capable of a good interpretation, capable of an evil, and lying indifferently between the two; the third, εὐλάβεια, is quite predominantly used in a good sense, though it too has not altogether escaped being employed in an evil. Δειλία, equivalent to the Latin ‘ timor,’ and having θρασύτης (‘foolhardiness’) for its contrary extreme (Plato, Tim. 87 a), is our ‘cowardice.’ It occurs only once in the N. T., 2 Tim. i. 7; where Bengel says, exactly on what authority I know not, ‘ Est timor cujus cause potius in animo sunt quam foris;’ but δειλιάω at John xiv. 27; and δειλός at Matt. vil. 26; Mark iv. 40; Rev. xxi. 8: the δειλοί in this last passage being those who in time of persecution have under fear of suffering denied the faith; cf. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 8. It is joined to ἀνανδρεία (Plato, Phedr. 254 c; Legg. ii. 659 a), to λειποταξία (Lysias, Orat. in Alcib. p. 140), to ψυχρότης (Plutarch, Fab. Max. 17), to ἔκλυσις (2 Mace. iii. 24); is ascribed by Josephus to the spies who brought an ill report of the Promised Land (Anit. 111. 15. 1); being constantly set over against ἀνδρεία, as δειλός over against ἀνδρεῖος : for example, in the long discussion on valour and cowardice in Plato’s Protagoras, 360 d; see too the lively description of the δειλός in the Characters (27) of Theophrastus. Δειλία seeks to shelter its timidity under the more honorable title of edAaBea (Philo, De Fort. 5); pleads for itself that it is indeed ἀσφάλεια (Plutarch, Anim. an Corp. Aff. Pej. 3; Philo, Quod Det. Pot. Insid. 11). Φόβος, very often united with τρόμος (as at Gen. ix. 2; Deut. xi. 25; Exod. xv. 16; 1 Cor. ii. 3; Phil. ii. 12), and answering to the Latin ‘metus,’ is a middle term, and as such used in the N. T’.. sometimes in a bad sense, but oftener ina good. Thus in a bad sense, Rom. vill. 15; 1 John iv. 18; cf. Wisd. xvii. 11; but ina good, Acts ix. 81; Rom. iii. 1 «And calls that providence, which we call flight.’—Drypxn. D 34 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §x 18; Ephes. vi. 5; Phil. 11. 12; 1 Pet. i. 17. Being this μέσον, Plato, in the Protagoras as referred to above, adds αἰσχρός to it, as often as he would indicate the timidity which misbecomes a man. On the distinction between ‘ timor,’ ‘metus,’ and “ formido’ see Donaldson, Complete Latin Grammar, p. 489. Εὐλάβεια only occurs twice in the N. T. (Heb. v. 7 [where see Bleek] ; and xii. 28), and on each occasion signifies piety contemplated as a fear of God ; la vigilance al’égard du mal (Godel). The image on which it rests is that of the careful taking hold and wary handling, the εὖ λαμβάνεσθαι, of some precious yet fragile vessel, which with ruder or less anxious handling might easily be broken ( yap εὐλάβεια σώζει πάντα, Aristophanes, Aves, 77), as in Balde’s sublime funeral hymn on the young German Empress— ‘Quam manibus osseis tangit, Crystallinam phialam frangit. O inepta et rustica Mors, O caduca juvencule sors!’ But such a cautious care in the conducting of affairs (the word is joined by Plutarch to πρόνοια, Marcell. 9; χρησιμωτάτη θεῶν it is declared by Euripides, Phen. 794); springing as in part it will from a fear of miscarriage, easily lies open to the charge of timidity. Thus Demosthenes, who opposes εὐλάβεια to θράσος (517), claims for himself that he was only εὐλαβής, where his enemies charged him with being δειλός and ἄτολμος : while in Plutarch (Fab. 17) εὐλαβής and δυσέλπιστος are joined together. It is not wonderful then that fear should have come to be regarded as an essential element of εὐλάβεια, sometimes so occupies the word as to leave no room for any other sense (Josephus, Antt. xi. 6.9), though for the most part no dishonorable fear (see, however, a remarkable exception, Wisd. xvii. 8) is intended, but one which a wise and good man might fitly entertain. Cicero (Twusc. iv. 6): ‘ Declinatio [a malis] si cum ratione fiet, cawtio appelletur, eaque intelligatur in solo esse sapiente ; que autem sine ratione et Sxl SIVONIMS ΟΣ THE NEW. TESTAMENT 3t cum exanimatione humili atque fracta, nominetur metus.’ He has probably the definition of the Stoics in his eyes. These, while they disallowed φόβος as a πάθος, admitted εὐλάβεια, which they defined as ἔκκλισις σὺν λόγῳ (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 18), into the circle of virtues; thus Diogenes Laertius (vii. 1. 116): τὴν δὲ εὐλάβειαν [ἐναντίαν ᾿ φασὶν εἶναι] τῷ φόβῳ, οὖσαν εὔλογον ἔκκλισιν: φοβήθήσεσθαι μὲν γὰρ τὸν σοφὸν οὐδαμῶς, εὐλαβηθήσεσθαι δέ: and Plutarch (De Repugn. Stoic. 11) quotes their maxim: τὸ γὰρ εὐλαβεῖσθαι σοφῶν ἴδιον. Yet after all, these distinctions whereby they sought to escape the embarrassments of their ethical position, the admission for instance that the wise man might feel ‘suspiciones quasdam et umbras affectuum,’ but not the ‘affectus’ themselves (Seneca, De Ird, i. 16; ef. Plutarch, De Virt. Mor. 9), were nothing worth; they had admitted the thing, and were now only fighting about words, with which to cover and conceal the virtual abandonment of their position, being ὀνοματομάχοι, as a Peripatetic adversary lays to their charge. See on this matter the full discussion in Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 7-9; and compare Augustine, De Civ. Dei, ix. 4. On the more distinctly religious aspect of εὐλάβεια there will be opportunity to speak hereafter (δ xlviii.). e = , , δ᾽ ΧΙ]. κακία, κακοήθεια. It would be a mistake to regard κακία in the N. T. as embracing the whole complex of moral evil. In this latitude no doubt it is often used; thus ἀρετή and κακία are virtue and vice (Plato, Rep. iv. 444 d) ; ἀρεταὶ καὶ κακίαι virtues and vices (Aristotle, Rhet. 11. 12; Ethic. Nic. vii. 1; Plutarch, Cony. Prec. 25, and often) ; while Cicero (Tusc. iv. 15) refuses to translate κακία by ‘ malitia,’ choosing rather to coin ‘ vitiositas’ for his need, and giving this as his reason: ‘Nam malitia certi cujusdam vitii nomen est, vitiositas omnium ;’ showing plainly hereby that in his eye κακία was the name, not of one vice, but of the viciousness out of which all vices spring. In the N. T., however, κακία is not so much D2 36 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § x1 viciousness as a special form of vice. Were it viciousness, other evil habits of the mind would be subordinated to it, as to a larger term including the lesser; whereas in fact they are coordinated with it (Rom. i. 29; Col. 111. 8; 1 Pet.ii.1). We must therefore seek for it a more special meaning ; and, comparing it with πονηρία, we shall not err in saying that κακία is more the evil habit of mind, the ‘ malitia,’ by which Cicero declined to render it, or, as he elsewhere explains it, ‘ versuta et fallax nocendi ratio’ (Nat. Deor. 111. 830; De Fin. 111. 11 in fine); while πονηρία is the active outcoming of the sameThus Calvin says of κακία (Eph. iv. 81): ‘Significat hoc verbo [Apostolus] animi pravitatem que humanitati et - equitati est opposita, et malignitas vulgo nuncupatur,’ or as Cicero defines ‘ malevolentia’ (Tusc. Quest. iv. 9): ‘ voluptas ex malo alterius sine emolumento suo.’ Our English Translators, rendering κακία so often by ‘malice’ (Ephes. iv. 31; 1 Cor. v. 8; xiv. 20; 1 Pet. ii. 1), show that they regarded it very much in this light. With this agrees the explanation of it by Theodoret on Rom. i.: κακίαν καλεῖ τὴν ψυχῆς ἐπὶ τὰ χείρω ῥοπήν, καὶ τὸν ἐπὶ βλάβῃ τοῦ πέλας γινόμενον λογισμόν. Not exactly but nearly thus the author of what long passed as a Second Epistle of Clement’s, but which now is known not to be an Epistle at all, warns against κακία as the forerunner (προοδοίπορος) of all other sins ($10). Compare the art. Bosheit in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopddie. While κακία occurs several times in the N. T., κακοήθεια occurs but once, namely in St. Paul’s long and terrible catalogue of the wickednesses with which the heathen world was filled (Rom. i. 29); but some four or five times in the Books of the Maccabees (8 Mace. iii. 22; vii. 3; 4 Mace. i. 4 ; iii. 4); κακοήθης there as well (4 Mace. i. 25; ii. 16); never in the Septuagint. We have translated it ‘malignity.’ When, however, we take it in this wider meaning, which none would deny that it very often has (Plato, Rep. 1. 348 d; Xenophon, De Ven. xiii. 16), or in that wider still which Basil the Great gives it (Reg. Brev. Int. T7: κακοήθεια μέν > ε ΄ Rd my ε Uh Ν Ἦ ,ὔ ἮΝ εστιν. WS λογίζομαι, αὐτῆ ἢ πρωτη και κεκρυμμενῇ KQKLO TOU ἤθους), Sxi po VNOVY US OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. --37 making it, as he thus does, exactly to correspond to the ‘ ill nature’ of our early divines (see my Select Glossary, 8. v.), just as the author of the Third Maccabees (iii. 22) speaks of some τῇ συμφύτῳ κακοηθείᾳ τὸ καλὸν ἀπωσάμενοι, διηνεκῶς δὲ εἰς τὸ φαῦλον ἐκνεύοντες, when, I say, its meaning is so far enlarged, it is very difficult to assign to it any domain which will not have been already preoccupied either by κακία or πονηρία. I prefer therefore to understand κακοήθεια here in the more restricted meaning which it sometimes possesses. The Geneva Version has so done, rendering it by a periphrasis, ‘‘ taking all things in the evil part;’’ which is exactly Aristotle’s definition, to whose ethical terminology the word belongs (het. 11. 18): ἔστι yap κακοήθεια τὸ ἐπὶ τὸ χεῖρον ὑπολαμβάνειν ἅπαντα : or, as Jeremy Taylor calls it, ‘a baseness of nature by which we take things by the wrong handle, and expound things always in the worst sense ;’ ! the ‘malignitas interpretantium ’ of Pliny (Hp. v. 7);? being exactly opposed to what Seneca (De Ird, ii. 24) so happily calls the ‘ benigna rerum estimatio.’ For precisely such a use of κακοήθως see Josephus, Anti. vii. 6.1; cf. 2 Sam. x. 3. This giving to all words and actions of others their most unfavorable interpretation Aristotle marks as one of the vices of the old, in that mournful, yet for the Christian most instructive, passage, which has been referred to just now ; they are κακοήθεις and καχύποπτοι. We shall scarcely err then, taking κακοήθεια, at Rom. i. 29, in this narrower meaning; the position which it occupies in that dread catalogue of sins entirely justifying us in treating it as that peculiar form of evil which manifests itself in a malignant interpretation of the actions of others, a constant attribution of them to the worst imaginable motives. Nor should we take leave of κακοήθεια without noticing 1 Grotius: ‘Cum que possumus in bonam partem interpretari, in pejorem rapimus, contra quam exigit officium dilectionis.’ 2 How striking, by the way, this use of ‘ interpretor,’ as ‘to interpret awry,’ in Tacitus (himself not wholly untouched with the vice), Pliny, and the other writers of their age. 38 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § xu the deep psychological truth attested in this secondary meaning which it has obtained, namely, that the evil which we trace in ourselves makes us ready to suspect and believe evil in others. The κακοήθης, being himself of an evil moral habit, projects himself, and the motives which actuate him, into others round him, sees himself in them; for, according to our profound English proverb, ‘ ΠῚ doers are ill deemers; ’ or, as it runs in the monkish line, ‘Autumat hoc in me quod novit perfidus in se;’ and just as Love on the one side, in those glorious words of Schiller, ‘ delightedly believes Divinities, being itself diwine ;’ so that which is itself thoroughly evil finds it impossible to believe anything but evil in others (Job i. 9-11; 11. 4, δ). Thus the suitors in the Odyssey, at the very time when they are laying plots for the life of Telemachus, are persuaded that he intends at a banquet to mingle poison with their wine, and so to make an end of them all (Odyss. ii. 829, 3380). Iago evidently believes the world to be peopled with Iagces, can conceive of no other type of humanity but his own. Well worthy of notice here is that remarkable passage in the Republic of Plato (iii. 409 a, 2), where Socrates, showing how well it is for physicians to have been mainly conversant with the sick, but not for teachers and rulers with the bad, explains how it comes to pass that young men, as yet uncorrupted, are εὐήθεις rather than κακοήθεις, ἅτε οὐκ ἔχοντες ἐν ἑαυτοῖς παραδείγματα ὁμοιοπαθῆ τοῖς πονηροῖς. δ᾽ ΧΙ], ἀγαπάω, φιλέω.
Moulton & Milligan — Vocabulary of the Greek NT
δειλία. For this NT ἅπ. εἰρ. (2 Tim 17) ch. BGU IL 37 (λυ. 154) δειλίαν with a gap both before and after, P Giss I. gol 15. (a,b, 215) δειλίας αἰτία. 21. 26 and
Liddell-Scott-Jones — Greek-English Lexicon
δειλία (deilia) — timidity. δειλία, ἡ, timidity, cowardice, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; δειλίην ὀφλεῖν to be charged with cowardice, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; δειλίας ὀφλεῖν (i.e. δίκην) [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἔνοχος δειλίας (i.e. δίκῃ) [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to ἀνδρεία, θρασύτης, [Refs 5th c.BC+]
II. misery, [Refs 6th c.AD+]
STEPBible — Tyndale Abridged Greek Lexicon
Bible Occurrences (1)
📖 Greek Word Study — In-Depth Study from Precept Austin
Timidity (1167) deilia