Quick Definition
πέλαγος, ους, τό n.n. the sea, the deep
Strong's Definition
of uncertain affinity; deep or open sea, i.e. the main
KJV Usage: depth, sea
UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament
noun, n. | -ους
1.73 · Geographical Objects and Features · Bodies of Water
open sea, high sea, the deep, ocean the relatively deep area of the sea or ocean sufficiently far from land as to be beyond the range of any protection from the seacoast In order to designate the high sea or the ocean, it may be necessary in some instances to speak of ‘the sea far from land’ or ‘the sea out of sight of land.’ People who live near the ocean and are seafaring frequently have quite distinct terms for different conditions of the sea, whether, for example, it is stormy, moderately rough, or relatively calm. Languages may also use different terms in speaking of different areas of the sea or ocean. Note, for example, in English the use of China Sea, North Sea, Bering Sea, in contrast with Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean. In English this contrast is relatively fixed, but it does reflect a gradation of size, since sea is used normally in speaking of smaller areas than is the case with ocean.
UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament © United Bible Societies, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
πέλαγος, -ous, τό, [by some (e.g. Lob. Pathol. Proleg. p- 805) connected with πλάξ, i. 6. the ‘flat’ expanse (cf. Lat. aequor); but by Curtius § 367 et al. (cf. Vaniéek p: 515) with πλήσσω, i. 6. the ‘beating’ waves (cf. our *plash’)], fr. Hom. down ; a. prop. the sea i.e. the high sea, the deep, (where ships sail; accordingly but a part of the sea, θάλασσα, Aristot. Probl. sect. 23 quaest. 8 [p. 931°, 14 sq.] ἐν τῷ λιμένι ὀλίγη ἐστὶν ἡ θάλασσα, ἐν δὲ τῷ πελάγει βαθεῖα. Hence) τὸ πέλαγος τῆς θαλάσσης, aequor maris, [A. V.the depth of the sea; cf. Trench § xiii.], Mt. xviii. 6 (so too Apollon. Rhod. 2, 608; πέλαγος alyaias ἁλός, Eur. Tro. 88; Hesych. πέλαγος" - .- βυθός, πλάτος θαλάσσης. Cf. W. 611 (568); [Trench u. 5.7). b. univ. the sea: τὸ πέλ. τὸ κατὰ τὴν Κιλικίαν, Acts xxvii. 5 (see exx. fr. Grk. auth. in Passow s. v. πέAayos, 1; [L. and 5. s. v. I.]).
Mounce Concise Greek Dictionary
πέλαγος pelagos 2x
the deep, the open sea, Mt. 18:6; a sea, distinguished from the sea in general, and named from an adjacent country, Acts 27:5*
Abbott-Smith Greek Lexicon
** πέλαγος, -ους, τό,
[in LXX: II Mac 5:21, IV Mac 7:1*;]
the deep sea, the deep, the sea: Ac 27:5; τὸ π. τῆς θαλάσσης, Mt 18:6.
SYN.: θαλάσσα (q.v.); and cf. ἄβυσσος.
Trench — Synonyms of the New Testament
THE connexion of θάλασσα with the verb ταράσσειν, that it means properly the agitated or disturbed, finds favour with 1 I cannot regard as an evidence of such reconsecration the wellknown words of Ignatius, Ad Rom. 7: ὃ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται. It is far more consistent with the genius of these Ignatian Epistles to take épws subjectively here, ‘ My love of the world is crucified,’ .6. with Christ ; rather than objectively, ‘ Christ, the object of my love, is crucified.’ 2 Consult on ἔρως the noble fragment from Sophocles, preserved by Stobeeus : Νόσημ᾽ ἔρωτος τοῦτ᾽ ἐφίμερον κακόν. ἔχοιμ᾽ ἂν αὐτὸ μὴ κακῶς ἀπεικάσαι, ὅταν πάγου φανέντος αἰθρίου χεροῖν κρύσταλλον ἁρπάσωσι παῖδες ἀσταγῆ. τὰ πρῶτ᾽ ἔχουσιν ἡδονὰς ποταινίους, τέλος δ᾽ ὃ χυμὸς οὔθ᾽ ὅπως ἀφῇ θέλει οὔτ᾽ ἐν χεροῖν τὸ κτῆμα σύμφορον μένειν. οὕτω γε τοὺς ἐρῶντας αὑτὸς ἵμερος δρᾶν καὶ τὸ μὴ δρᾶν πολλάκις προΐεται. §xul1 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 43 Curtius (p. 596) and with Pott (Htym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 56). Schmidt dissents (vol. i. p. 642); and urges that the predominant impression which the sea makes on the beholder is not of unrest but of rest, of quietude and not of agitation ; that we must look for the word’s primary meaning in quite another direction : θάλασσα, he says, ‘ ist das Meer nach seiner natiirlichen Beschaffenheit, als grosse Salzflut, und dem Sinne nach von dem poetischen ἄλς durch nichts unterschieden.’ It is according to him ‘the great salt flood.’ But not entering further into this question, it will be enough to say that, like the Latin ‘mare,’ it is the sea as contrasted with the land (Gen. i. 10; Matt. xxiii. 15; Acts iv. 24); or perhaps more strictly as contrasted with the shore (see Hayman’s Odyssey, vol. i. p. xxxiii, Appendix). Πέλαγος is the vast uninterrupted level and expanse of open water, the ‘altum mare,’! as distinguished from those portions of it broken by islands, shut in by coasts and headlands (Thucydides, vi. 104; vii. 49; Plutarch, Zimol. 8).2 The suggestion of breadth, and not depth, except as an accessory notion, and as that which will probably find place in this open sea, lies in the word; thus Sophocles (id. Col. 659) : μακρὸν τὸ δεῦρο πέλαγος, οὐδὲ TAHT ov : 50 too the murmuring Israelites (Philo, Vit. Mos. i. 85) liken to a πέλαγος the far-reaching sand-flats of the desert ; and in Herodotus (ii. 92) the Nile overflowing Egypt is said πελαγίζειν τὰ πεδία, which yet it only covers to the depth of a few feet; cf. 11. 97. A passage in the Timeus of Plato (25 a, δ) illustrates well the distinction 1 It need hardly be observed that, adopted into Latin, it has the same meaning : ‘Ut pelagus tenuere rates, nec jam amplius ulla Occurrit tellus, maria undique et undique cxlum.’ Virgil, An. v. 8. 2. Hippias, in the Protagoras of Plato (338 a), charges the eloquent sophist with a φεύγειν εἰς πέλαγος τῶν λόγων, ἀποκρύψαντα γῆν. This last idiom reappears in the French ‘noyer la terre,’ applied to a ship sailing out of sight of land ; as indeed in Virgil’s ‘ Phaacum abscondimus arces.’ 44 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § xiv between the words, where the title of πέλαγος is refused to the Mediterranean Sea: which is but a harbour, with the narrow entrance between the Pillars of Hercules for its mouth ; while only the great Atlantic Ocean beyond can be acknowledged as ἀληθινὸς πόντος, πέλαγος ὄντως. Compare Aristotle, De Mun.3; Meteorol. ii. 1: ῥέουσα δ᾽ ἡ θάλαττα φαίνεται κατὰ τὰς στενότητας [the Straits of Gibraltar], εἴπου διὰ περιέχουσαν γῆν εἰς μικρὸν ἐκ μεγάλου συνάγεται πέλαγος. It might seem as if this distinction did not hold good on one of the two occasions wpon which πέλαγος occurs in the N. T., namely Matt. xviii. 6: “ It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (καὶ καταποντισθῇ ἐν τῷ πελάγει τῆς θαλάσσης). But the sense of depth, which undoubtedly the passage requires, is here to be looked for in the καταποντισθῇ :--πόντος (not in the N. T.) being connected with βάθος, βυθός (Exod. xv. 5), βένθος, perhaps the same word as this last, and implying the sea in its perpendicular depth, as πέλαγος (=‘ maris equor,’ Virgil, Ain. ii. 780), the same in its horizontal dimensions and extent. Compare Déderlein, Lat. Syn. vol. iv. p. 75.
Moulton & Milligan — Vocabulary of the Greek NT
πέλαγος. For πέλαγος, ‘‘the open sea”’ (note the conjunction with θάλασσα in Mt 18°), see OG/S 748 (B.C. 247-221) Θεύδοτος Δωρίωνος ᾿Ιουδαῖος σωθεὶς ἐκ πελ(άγ)ους, and cf. 75. 694" σωθεὶς ἐγ μεγάλων κινδύνων ἐκπλεύσας ἐκ τῆς ᾿Εἰρυθρᾶς θαλάσσης. The adj. πελάγιος occurs in the sailor’s song P Oxy XI. 1383 (late iii/A.D.) where the 2nd column begins— ” “Ῥοδίοις ἐκέλευον ἀνέμοις kal μέρεσι τοῖς πελαγίοις, ὅτε πλέειν ἤθελον ἐγώ, “ΕἸ commanded the Rhodian winds and the seaward parts when I wished to sail.
Liddell-Scott-Jones — Greek-English Lexicon
πέλαγος (pelagos) — sea. πέλᾰγ-ος, εος, τό, genitive plural πελαγέων [Refs 5th c.BC+]; Epic dialect dative πελάγεσσι (see. below):—the sea, especially high sea, open sea, π. μέγα [Refs 8th c.BC+].; διὰ πελάγους out at sea, opposed to παρὰ γῆν, [Refs 5th c.BC+]: frequently coupled with other words denoting sea, ἁλὸς ἐν πελάγεσσιν [Refs 8th c.BC+]; π. πόντιον, πόντου π., [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἅλιον π. [Refs 5th c.BC+]
2. of parts of the sea (θάλασσα), frequently with geographical epithet, Αἰγαῖον π. [Refs 5th c.BC+]
3. flooded plain, γίνεται π. [Refs 5th c.BC+]
II. metaphorically, of any vast quantity, πλούτου π. [Refs 5th c.BC+]; κακῶν π. a 'sea of troubles', [Refs 4th c.BC+]; ἄτης ἄβυσσον π. [Refs 5th c.BC+]; of great difficulties, μέγ᾽ ἄρα π. ἐλαχέτην τι[Refs]