adjective
opsēas
Strong’sG3798
evening, nightfall
stem opsē-14 times in the New Testamentin 3 of 27 books2 of 26 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
Evening, the latter part of the day 3, covering the period from later afternoon into nightfall 24. It stands opposite to dawn or early morning 3, and can be used both of the earlier stretch of evening (early eve) and of the later stretch, i.e. nightfall proper 2. It is sometimes combined with another word for "late afternoon" to mean "late in the evening" 3.
Sources: 1 Abbott-Smith 2 Strong's 3 LSJ 4 Biblang's gloss. 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
** ὀψία, -ας, ἡ, v.s. ὄψιος.
G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.
Strong’s G3798 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from
Saidop'-see-os
late; feminine (as noun) afternoon (early eve) or nightfall (later eve)
Fromfrom G3796;
King Jameseven(-ing, (-tide)).
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
Ionic dialect -ιη (i.e. ὥρα), ἡ, the latter part of day, evening, opposed to ὄρθρος, frequently joined with δείλη (which see), μέχρι δείλης ὀψίης Refs 5th c.BC+; δείλης ὀ. late in the evening, Refs 4th c.BC+; ὀψίας alone, Refs 2nd c.AD+ —Cf. ὄψιος.
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 | masculine singular | feminine singular | neuter singular | masculine plural | feminine plural | neuter plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| subject nominative | opsēos | opsēas1×ὀψία | opsēem | opsēois | opsēais | opsēeim |
| object accusative | opsēon | opsēan | opsēoin | opsēain | ||
| direct address vocative | opsēor | opsēar | opsēoir | opsēair | ||
| of, belonging to genitive | opsēou | opsēau13×ὀψίας | opsēeu | opsēoiu | opsēaiu | opsēeiu |
| to, for dative | opsēo | opsēa | opsēe | opsēoi | opsēai | opsēei |
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
opsē 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.
14 occurrences, every one of them listed
opsēas“evening”subjectnominative singular1×
John 6:16Hōs de opsēas geneta katabainala tois mathētois autou epi …When evening came, His disciples went down to …
opsēau“evening”of, belonging togenitive singular13×
Matthew 8:16Opsēau de generantau prosferala auto daimonizorōntoin polloin; …When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were …
Matthew 14:15opsēau de generantau proserchala auto tois mathētois …When evening came, the disciples came to Him …
Matthew 14:23… eis tem orem kata idian proseuchera. opsēau de generantau monos ate ekei.… mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone,
Matthew 16:2tos de apokrinirantos legata autoi; Opsēau generantau legavō; Eudias, purrazatō gar tos …But He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘The weather will …
Matthew 20:8opsēau de generantau legatō tos kurios tou …When evening came, the owner of the vineyard …
Matthew 26:20Opsēau de generantau anakeiote meta toiu dōdeka …When evening came, Jesus was reclining with the …
Matthew 27:57Opsēau de generantau erchata anthrōpos plousios apo …When it was evening, there came a rich man from …
Mark 1:32Opsēau de generantau, hote dusata tos hēlios, …That evening, after sunset, people brought to Jesus …
Mark 4:35… legatō autoi en ekeina ta hēmera opsēau generantau; Dierchaneia eis tem peran.When that evening came, He said to His disciples …
Mark 6:47Kai opsēau generantau ate tem ploiem en mese …When evening came, the boat was in the …
Mark 14:17Kai opsēau generantau erchotō meta toiu dōdeka.When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.
Mark 15:42Kai ēdē opsēau generantau, epei ate paraskevas, hem atō …Now it was already evening. Since it was Preparation Day (that …
John 20:19Arōntau oun opsēau ta hēmera ekeina ta hena sabbateiu, …… of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with …