to answer: to speak in reply, whether responding to a question or speaking up to address what someone has said or done
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this word means to give a reply. Often that reply is the direct answer to a question someone has just asked, the natural sense of answering when put on the spot or interrogated.
But the Gospels also use it in a wider way that comes straight from Hebrew storytelling. A speaker who has not been asked anything will still be said to answer before going on to speak. Here answer does not point back to a question; it marks that the person is taking their turn, responding to the moment or the situation in front of them and beginning what they want to say. English keeps a trace of this when we say someone responded to a remark or spoke up.
The two uses are one idea seen from two angles: a reply that meets a question, and a reply that meets a circumstance. The same word covers both because in the world of the text, speaking back into a situation and speaking back to a question are the same kind of act.
Nuances
1ato reply to a question, request, or charge that has been put to someone
The everyday word for replying in conversation, where nothing is at stake and no charge is in view: Peter simply says who Jesus is, and the bridegroom simply tells the late girls he does not know them.Mat 16:16Mat 25:12
Covers the failure to reply as well as actual speech, so silence itself can be counted as the answer: Jesus gives the Canaanite woman no word at all, and the high priest presses him with "do you answer nothing?"Mat 15:23Mat 26:62
Can open a speech that responds to a whole scene rather than to any question someone asked: Jesus breaks into praise of the Father, and Peter blurts out his offer of three shelters on the mountain.Mat 11:25Mat 17:4
The reply may itself be a counter-question that turns the challenge back on the challengers rather than settling it.Mat 21:24
Both
Both name words spoken back to someone else, and one speech can be described by both at once: Paul "answered" the governor's nod and in the same breath began to "make his defense".Act 24:10
Both are used of what gets said at a formal hearing before those in power, whether it is the high priest speaking up at Jesus' trial or Paul speaking before King Agrippa.Mat 26:63Act 26:2
The speaker is under accusation and talks to clear himself: Paul says he has done no wrong to the law, the temple, or Caesar, and counts himself fortunate to speak about the charges the Jews bring against him.Act 25:8Act 26:2
Names a whole formal speech, the set piece a person stands and delivers before a ruler, long enough for the listener to interrupt it partway through.Act 26:1Act 26:24
Reaches well beyond a courtroom to any speaking up against a charge: thoughts that excuse a person before God, and a letter that answers a church's suspicions about its writer.Rom 2:152Co 12:19
It is the word Jesus uses for what his followers will have to do when they are hauled before councils and rulers, and he tells them not to rehearse it in advance.Luk 12:11Luk 21:14
apokrinō in the other biblical languages
עָנָהHebrew“to answer”the Hebrew verb for answering and responding, including the storytelling formula answered and said that this Greek word carries into the Gospels
Frequently opens a reply that is not a response to a question at all, but a fresh declaration prompted by the situation, as when Jesus answers by taking up a new subject.Mat 11:25Mat 17:4
Names the formal answer a defendant gives to a charge in court, the reply made before judges or rulers.Mat 27:12Mrk 14:61
Both
Both name the act of answering a person who has spoken or asked, the reply that follows another's words; the Greek word is the standard counterpart for the Hebrew one when one speaker responds to another.Gen 18:27Mat 4:4
Both can pair an answer with the verb for saying, so that a reply is reported as answering and then quoting the very words, a turn of phrase the Greek inherits from the Hebrew pattern.Gen 23:5Mat 15:28
meets an actual question or challenge with a genuine reply in live give-and-take, and can even turn a question back on the asker. It is the ordinary verb of debate and dialogue across every kind of New Testament text, not just narrative.Mat 21:24Mat 22:46
carries the weight of answering formal charges under interrogation, where the pointed issue is whether the accused will give any answer at all.Mat 26:62Mat 27:12
Both
both anchor the set narrative formula "answered and said" that opens a speaker's reply, and both use it even when no literal question was asked. The Greek phrasing directly calques this older Aramaic and Hebrew way of introducing speech.Dan 2:20Mat 11:25
both introduce a weighty pronouncement rather than a casual remark, opening a solemn declaration prompted by the moment.Dan 7:2Mat 17:4
belongs only to the Aramaic court narrative of Daniel and Ezra, where it is the ceremonial verb for a king or a courtier formally taking the floor, often to hand down a decree or verdict rather than to reply to any question.Dan 2:5Dan 3:14
Belongs entirely to speech. Every occurrence is someone replying with words, and it is never used of a thing being handed back or a person coming back.Mrk 15:2Jhn 1:21
Often opens a fresh turn of speech where no question has been asked at all, so the storyteller uses it simply to mark that someone spoke up in the situation.Mat 11:25Mat 17:4
Is the word for making a legal defense: a prisoner speaking for himself before a governor, and the Roman rule that an accused man must be given the chance to do so.Act 24:10Act 25:16
Both
Both are an ordinary way to report that a person replied to what was said to him, and English Bibles render each with "answered".Dan 2:14Mat 4:4
Both cover an answer owed to someone in power who is demanding one, including the answer a person deliberately withholds.Dan 3:16Mrk 14:61Mrk 15:5
Covers the plain physical sense of putting something back where it came from, with no speech involved: the temple vessels are to be given back and carried to their own place.Ezr 6:5
Also describes something lost coming back to the person who lost it, as Nebuchadnezzar's sanity and his royal splendor come back to him.Dan 4:34Dan 4:36
Even where it means "answer", the picture is of a word being sent back, so the reply can be one written down and carried to the king rather than spoken face to face.Ezr 5:5Ezr 5:11
What scholars say about apokrinō
Standard lexica treat this verb as basically meaning to answer or reply, while noting that the New Testament, especially the Gospels, also uses it in a wider sense shaped by Hebrew narrative style, where it introduces an utterance without a preceding question. BDAG distinguishes the sense of replying to a question or statement from the sense of beginning to speak or responding to a situation, the latter reflecting the Septuagint's rendering of the Hebrew verb anah and its formula answered and said. LSJ records the classical range of replying and answering.