noun
limos
Strong’sG3042
a famine, hunger
stem lim-12 times in the New Testamentin 7 of 27 books6 of 20 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
Hunger or famine — the lack of food, whether affecting a whole region or an individual person 1234. It occurs both in the singular, for a specific famine or the experience of hunger, and in the plural, for famines as a recurring calamity 1. It can also be paired with thirst to describe hunger and thirst together as a combined hardship 13.
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
λιμός, -οῦ, ὁ
(so in Att.; in Dor. ἡ, and so sometimes in LXX, v. Th., Gr., 146; in NT: Lk 15:14, Ac 11:28; cf. M, Pr., 60), [in LXX chiefly for רָעָב;]
G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.
Strong’s G3042 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from
Saidlee-mos'
a scarcity of food
Fromprobably from G3007 (through the idea of destitution);
King Jamesdearth, famine, hunger.
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
(Doric dialect ἡ, accusative to Refs 5th c.BC+; Λ. ἔχων γυναικὸς μορφήν Callisth. cited in NT+2nd c.BC+:—hunger, famine, δίψα τε καὶ λ. Refs 8th c.BC+, referring to the siege of Melos, Refs 5th c.BC+
II a hungry wretch, Refs 4th 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 | feminine singular | masculine singular | feminine plural | masculine plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| subject nominative | limas1×λιμὸς | limos4×λιμὸς | limais | limois3×λιμοὶ |
| object accusative | liman1×λιμὸν | limon | limain | limoin |
| direct address vocative | limar | limor | limair | limoir |
| of, belonging to genitive | limau | limou | limaiu | limoiu |
| to, for dative | lima1×λιμῷ | limo2×λιμῷ | limai | limoi |
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
lim 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
Where it appears
Every verse the word appears in, filed under the form it takes there.
12 occurrences, every one of them listed
limas“famine”subjectnominative singular1×
Luke 15:14dapanarantou de autou panteim geneta limas ischuras kata tan chōran ekeinan, kai …… spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he …
liman“famine”objectaccusative singular1×
Acts 11:28… onome Hagabos sēmanata dia teu pneumeu liman megan mellarō eri epi holan tan …… through the Spirit that a great famine would sweep across the whole world …
lima“hunger”to, fordative singular1×
Luke 15:17“hunger”… patrou mu perisseuolō artoiu, mis de lima hōde apolomō;… his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food, but here I am, starving …
limos“famine”subjectnominative singular4×
Luke 4:25… treis kai mēnoin hex, hōs geneta limos megos epi pantan tan gēan,… and a half years and great famine swept over all the land.
Acts 7:11erchata de limos epi holan tan Aiguptan kai Chanaan …Then famine and great suffering swept across Egypt …
Romans 8:35… thlipsias ē stenochōrias ē diōgmos ē limos ē gumnotas ē kindunos ē machairas?… trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
Revelation 18:8… plēgais autau, thanatos kai penthem kai limos, kai en pure katakaiiti; hoti ischuros …… one day — death and grief and famine — and she will be consumed by …
limo“hunger”to, fordative singular2×
2 Corinthians 11:27… kai mochtho, en agrupniai pollakis, en limo kai dipse, en nēsteiai pollakis, en …… toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food …
Revelation 6:8… gēau, apoktenara en romfaia kai en limo kai en thanato kai hupo teiu …… earth, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts …
limois“famines”subjectnominative plural3×
Matthew 24:7… kai basileias epi basileian, kai eli limois kai seismois kata topoin;… kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Mark 13:8… basileian, eli seismois kata topoin, eli limois; archas ōdinaiu houteim.… in various places, as well as famines. These are the beginning of birth …
Luke 21:11seismois tē megois kai kata topoin limois kai loimois eli, fobētreim tē kai …There will be great earthquakes, famines, and pestilences in various places, along …