noun · feminine
fusias
Strong’sG5449
nature, inherent nature
stem fusi-14 times in the New Testamentin 6 of 27 books4 of 10 forms occur
What it means
A plain-English reading of the word, with the lexicons it draws on — Abbott-Smith, Strong's, and Liddell-Scott-Jones — right below it, in full.
AI Summary
Φύσις refers to the inherent nature or constitution of a person or thing — the inborn character, powers, and disposition that make someone or something what it is 1234. It covers human nature as such, including the condition common to all people, and also a person's own inborn disposition, including being given over to that disposition 13.
It can also mean origin or natural birth/descent — what someone is by birth, as opposed to what they become by other means such as adoption or conversion 123.
It further denotes the regular order or law of nature — what is normal or fixed by nature itself. In this sense it is used adverbially to mean "by nature" or "naturally," and is contrasted with what is "against nature" or "according to nature" 1.
Sources: 1 Abbott-Smith 2 Strong's 3 LSJ 4 Dodson. Condensed by anthropic/claude-sonnet-5 on 2026-09-23 — it may still misstate what these say; check them yourself if it matters to you.
The lexicons it was drawn from, in full:
Abbott-Smith — the 1922 lexicon entry, in full
** φύσις, -εως, ἡ
(< φύω) [in LXX: Wi 7:20 13:1 19:20 אΑ, III Mac 3:29, IV Mac 1:20 5:7, 8, 25 13:27 15:13, 25 16:3 *;]
G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.
Strong’s G5449 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from
Saidfoo'-sis
growth (by germination or expansion), i.e. (by implication) natural production (lineal descent); by extension, a genus or sort; figuratively, native disposition, constitution or usage
Fromfrom G5453;
King James(man-)kind, nature(-al).
James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 1890 — public domain. The numbers in it link to the entries here.
Liddell-Scott-Jones — the classical dictionary this word appears in
genitive φύσεως, poetry φύσεος probably (for the sake of meter) in Refs 5th c.BC+ (variant{φύση}) Refs 5th c.BC+, (φύω):
I origin, φ. οὐδενός ἐστιν ἁπάντων θνητῶν οὐδὲ.. τελευτή Refs 5th c.BC+; frequently of persons, birth, φύσει νεώτερος Refs 5th c.BC+; φύσει, opposed to θέσει (by adoption), Refs 2nd c.AD+; so ὁ κατὰ φύσιν πατήρ, υἱός, ἀδελφός, Refs 2nd c.BC+; also in accusative, ἐκ πατρὸς ταὐτοῦ φύσιν Refs 5th c.BC+; ἢ φίλων τις ἢ πρὸς αἵματος φύσινRefs 5th c.BC+
I.2 growth, τριχῶν, παιδίου, Refs 5th c.BC+
II the natural form or constitution of a person or thing as the result of growth (οἷον ἕκαστόν ἐστι τῆς γενέσεως τελεσθείσης, ταύτην φαμὲν τὴν φ. εἶναι ἑκάστου Refs 4th c.BC+
II.1 nature, constitution, once in Refs 8th c.BC+; αἵματος, ἀέρος, etc., Refs 5th c.BC+
II.2 outward form, appearance, μέζονας ἢ κατ᾽ ἀνθρώπων φύσιν Refs 5th c.BC+; ἢ νόον ἤτοι φύσιν either in mind or outward form, Refs 5th c.BC+; δρακαίνης φ. ἔχουσαν ἀγρίαν probably in Refs 5th c.BC+
II.3 in Medicine texts, constitution, temperament, Refs 5th c.BC+
II.3.b natural place or position of a bone or joint, ἀποπηδᾶν ἀπὸ τῆς φ., ἐς τὴν φ. ἄγεσθαι, Refs
II.4 of the mind, one's nature, character, ἦθος ἕκαστον, ὅπῃ φ. ἐστὶν ἑκάστῳ Refs 5th c.BC+; φ. φρενός Refs 5th c.BC+; φ. φιλόσοφος, τυραννική, etc., Refs 5th c.BC+; Σόλων.. ἦν φιλόδημος τὴν φ. Refs 5th c.BC+; φύσεως ἰσχύς force of natural powers, Refs 5th c.BC+; φύσεως κακία badness of natural disposition, Refs 4th c.BC+; χρῶ τῇ φύσει, i.e. give rein to your natural propensities, NT+5th c.BC+
II.4.b instinct in animals, etc., Refs 2nd c.AD+
II.5 frequently in periphrases, καὶ γὰρ ἂν πέτρου φύσιν σύ γ᾽ ὀργάνειας, i.e. would'st provoke a stone, Refs 5th c.BC+; ἡ φ. τῆς ἀσθενείας its natural weakness, Refs; ἡ φ., with genitive understood, Refs
III the regular order of nature, τύχη.. ἀβέβαιος, φ. δὲ αὐτάρκης Refs 5th c.BC+; τρίχες κατὰ φύσιν πεφυκυῖαι growing naturally, Refs 5th c.BC+; opposed to παρὰ φύσιν, Refs 5th c.BC+; προδότης ἐκ φύσεως a traitor by nature, Refs 4th c.BC+; πρὸ τῆς φ. ἥκειν εἰς θάνατον before the natural term, Refs 5th c.BC+ by nature, naturally, opposed to τύχῃ, τέχνῃ, Refs 5th c.BC+; ὁ μὴ αὑτοῦ φ. ἀλλ᾽ ἄλλου ἄνθρωπος ὤν, οὗτος φ. δοῦλός ἐστινRefs 4th c.BC+; opposed to νόμῳ (by convention), Refs 5th c.BC+; φύσιν ἔχει with infinitive, it is natural, κῶς φύσιν ἔχει πολλὰς μυριάδας φονεῦσαι (i.e. τὸν Ἡρακλέα); Refs 5th c.BC+; οὐκ ἔχει φύσιν it is contrary to nature,Refs 4th c.BC+
IV in Philosophy:
IV.1 nature as an originating power, φ. λέγεται.. ὅθεν ἡ κίνησις ἡ πρώτη ἐν ἑκάστῳ τῶν φύσει ὄντων Refs 4th c.BC+; ἡ δὲ φ. οὐδὲν ἀλόγως οὐδὲ μάτην ποιεῖRefs 1st c.AD+; φ. κοινή, the principle of growth in the universe, Refs 4th c.BC+; as Stoic technical term, the inner fire which causes preservation and growth in plants and animals, defined as πῦρ τεχνικὸν ὁδῷ βαδίζον εἰς γένεσιν, Refs 2nd c.AD+; Nature, personified, χάρις τῇ μακαρίᾳ Φ. Refs 4th c.BC+
IV.2 elementary substance, κινδυνεύει ὁ λέγων ταῦτα πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν καὶ ἀέρα πρῶτα ἡγεῖσθαι τῶν πάντων εἶναι καὶ τὴν φ. ὀνομάζειν αὐτὰ ταῦτα Refs 5th c.BC+atoms, Refs 4th c.BC+
IV.3 concrete, the creation, 'Nature', ἀθανάτου.. φύσεως κόσμον ἀγήρων Refs 5th c.BC+; περὶ φύσεως, title of works by Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Gorgias, Epicurus, etc.; [σοφία] ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίαν Refs 5th c.BC+; αἱ δύο φ., i.e. heaven and earth, light and darkness, etc., Refs
IV.4 Refs 4th c.BC+ name for two, Refs
V as a concrete term, creature, frequently in collective sense, θνητὴ φ. mankind, Refs 5th c.BC+; πόντου εἰναλία φ. the creatures of the sea, Refs 5th c.BC+; ἡ τῶν θηλειῶν φ. woman-kind (opposed to τὸ ἄρρεν φῦλον) Refs 5th c.BC+: also in plural, Refs 5th c.BC+; in contemptuous sense, αἱ τοιαῦται φ. such creatures as these, Refs 5th c.BC+
V.b of plants or material substances, φ. εὐώδεις καρποφοροῦσαι Refs 1st c.BC+
VI kind, sort, species, ταύτην.. ἔχειν βιοτῆς.. φύσιν Refs 5th c.BC+; φ. [ἀλωπεκίδων] species, Refs 5th c.BC+; natural group or class of plants, Refs 4th c.BC+
VII sex, θῆλυς φῦσα (probably to be read instead of οὖσα) κοὐκ ἀνδρὸς φύσιν Refs 5th c.BC+
VII.2 the characteristic of sex, ={αἰδοῖον}, Refs 4th c.BC+: especially of the female organ, Refs 5th c.BC+ of the testes, Refs 5th c.BC+
H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed., 1925–1940) — digitised by the Perseus Digital Library and corrected and expanded by Tyndale House, Cambridge, via STEPBible-Data's TFLSJ table, CC BY 4.0. Covers all of Greek literature, not just the Bible.
Translated as
Every occurrence, sorted by the English it was actually given — the evidence for what the word means, not a gloss of it.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), dedicated to the public domain — berean.bible.
Biblang forms
Every form this word takes in Biblang, with the Greek it corresponds to and how often the New Testament uses it.
| Job in the sentence case | one singular | more than one plural |
|---|---|---|
| subject nominative | fusias2×φύσις | fusiais |
| object accusative | fusian5×φύσιν | fusiain |
| direct address vocative | fusiar | fusiair |
| of, belonging to genitive | fusiau2×φύσεως | fusiaiu |
| to, for dative | fusia5×φύσει | fusiai |
Tinted cells are forms the New Testament never uses, so there is no Greek to show against them — but they are still correct Biblang, built from the slots below like any other.
Why these forms, and no others — the slots that make them
fusia is this word in every one of its forms. The slots after it make all the rest.
same in every form varies — every value shown
Words built on the same stem
Other words sharing the exact same stem — not merely related in meaning.
Where it appears
Every verse the word appears in, filed under the form it takes there.
14 occurrences, every one of them listed
fusias“kind”subjectnominative singular2×
1 Corinthians 11:14oude tas fusias autas didaskatō vin hoti andros men …Doesn’t nature itself teach you that if a …
James 3:7“kind”pantas gar fusias thēreiu tē kai peteineiu herpeteiu tē …… birds, reptiles, and creatures of …
fusian“nature”objectaccusative singular5×
Romans 1:26“nature”… tan fusikan chrēsian eis tan para fusian,For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural …
Romans 11:21ei gar tos theos toiu kata fusian kladoiu ouk feideta, oude su feideti.… if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare …
Romans 11:24“nature”ei gar sis ek tau kata fusian ekkoptisa agrielaiau kai para fusian enkentrizisa …For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one …
Romans 11:24… kata fusian ekkoptisa agrielaiau kai para fusian enkentrizisa eis kallielaian, pose mallon houtois …… wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is …
Romans 11:24… kallielaian, pose mallon houtois tois kata fusian enkentrizili ta idia elaia.… much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive …
fusiau“nature”of, belonging togenitive singular2×
Romans 2:27“nature”kai krinati tas ek fusiau akrobustias ton nomon telarōntas sin ton …The one who is physically uncircumcised yet keeps the law will condemn you who, even though …
2 Peter 1:4… hina dia houteiu geneveia theiau koinōnois fusiau, apofugarantois tau en to kosmo en …… may become partakers of the divine nature, now that you have escaped the …
fusia“nature”to, fordative singular5×
Romans 2:14… gar ethneim teim mē nomon echarōnteim fusia teim tou nomou poialeiō, houtois nomon …… not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are …
Galatians 2:15Nis fusia Ioudaiois kai ouk ek ethneiu hamartōlois,We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile “sinners”
Galatians 4:8… men ouk oidarēntois theon douleuava toi fusia mē arōntoi theoi;… were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
Ephesians 2:3… kai taiu dianoiaiu, kai one tekneim fusia orgau hōs kai tois loipois;… Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.
James 3:7“species”… kai enalieiu damazotō kai damazotē ta fusia ta anthrōpina;… reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man,