noun · feminine
paidiskas
Strong’sG3814
a female slave, maidservant, maid.
stem paidisk-13 times in the New Testamentin 6 of 27 books5 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
παιδίσκη most often means a young female slave or servant, a maidservant 1234. This is the sense the word carries throughout the New Testament, referring to slave-girls or bondwomen, including its use for Hagar and, in a figurative application, for the covenant she represents 13.
The word can also mean simply a young girl or maiden, without any notion of servitude, a sense found in the Greek Old Testament and in classical Greek usage 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
παιδίσκη, -ης, ἡ,
dimin, of παῖς, [in LXX for שִׁפְחָה, אָמָה, etc.;]
SYN.: v.s. παῖς.
G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.
Strong’s G3814 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from
Saidpahee-dis'-kay
a girl, i.e. (specially), a female slave or servant
Fromfeminine diminutive of G3816;
King Jamesbondmaid(-woman), damsel, maid(-en).
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
diminutive of παῖς (ἡ), young girl, maiden, Refs 5th c.BC+; π. νέα, of a wife, Refs 1st c.AD+
II young female slave, bondmaid, NT+5th c.BC+: generally, maidservant, NT; τοὺς παῖδας καὶ τὰς π. NT
II.2 prostitute, 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 | paidiskas5×παιδίσκη | paidiskais |
| object accusative | paidiskan2×παιδίσκην | paidiskain1×παιδίσκας |
| direct address vocative | paidiskar | paidiskair |
| of, belonging to genitive | paidiskau4×παιδίσκης | paidiskaiu1×παιδισκῶν |
| to, for dative | paidiska | paidiskai |
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
paidiska 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.
13 occurrences, every one of them listed
paidiskas“servant girl”subjectnominative singular5×
Matthew 26:69… ta aula; kai proserchata auto henas paidiskas legarōntas; Kai sis ase meta Iēsu …… out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came up to him. “You also …
Mark 14:69kai tas paidiskas horarantas auton archeta palin legarō toi …There the servant girl saw him and again said to …
Luke 22:56horarantas de auton paidiskas tinas kathorōnton pros tem fōtem kai …A servant girl saw him seated in the firelight …
John 18:17legatō oun to Petro tas paidiskas tas thurōras; Mē kai sis ek …At this, the servant girl watching the door said to Peter …
Acts 12:13… autou tan thuran tou pulōnou proserchata paidiskas hupakouara onome Rodas,… at the outer gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer it.
paidiskan“slave”objectaccusative singular2×
Acts 16:16… de poreuorōntoiu nu eis tan proseuchan paidiskan tinan echarōntan pneumem puthōnon hupantara ni, …… prayer, we were met by a slave girl with a spirit of divination, who …
Galatians 4:30… tinem legatō tas grafas? Ekbalasar tan paidiskan kai ton huion autau, ouk gar …… does the Scripture say? “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the …
paidiskau“slave”of, belonging togenitive singular4×
Galatians 4:22… duo huioin echata, henon ek tau paidiskau kai henon ek tau eleutherau;… had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free …
Galatians 4:23alla tos men ek tau paidiskau kata sarkan gennotē, tos de ek …His son by the slave woman was born according to the …
Galatians 4:30… gar mē klēronomati tos huios tau paidiskau meta tou huiou tau eleutherau.… woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in …
Galatians 4:31dio, adelfoir, ouk anō paidiskau tekneim alla tau eleutherau.… we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
paidiskain“women”objectaccusative plural1×
Luke 12:45“women”… archeteia tuptarō toin paidoin kai tain paidiskain, esthiarō tē kai pinarō kai methuskorō,… and he begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk.
paidiskaiu“servant girls”of, belonging togenitive plural1×
Mark 14:66… en ta aula erchotō henas taiu paidiskaiu tou archierevou,… the courtyard below, one of the servant girls of the high priest came down