to count someone or something as worth nothing; to despise as of no account
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
The word is built from parts meaning "out into nothing," and that is exactly its force: to reckon a person or thing as zero on the scale of worth. It is not ordinary dislike or looking down on someone. It sits at the far end of the contempt vocabulary, treating the other as a non-person who does not count at all.
It was at home in Jewish Greek. It is the standard word the Greek Old Testament uses to translate several Hebrew verbs of scornful rejection, and it is rare in ordinary Greek writing outside the Bible. In legal documents it could even mean to cancel or void a debt, which fits its basic idea of reducing something to nothing.
In the New Testament, especially in Luke and Paul, the word carries a deliberate theological charge. The same verb describes:
what the self-righteous do to sinners
what Herod did to Jesus
what the builders did to the cornerstone
what the strong do to the weak
Paul then turns it inside out: God has chosen the very people the world counts as nothing, so believers must never write one another off this way.
Nuances
1ato despise a person or thing, treating them as beneath any regard
1bto reject something as worthless, casting it aside as of no account
Act 4:11
1cto treat someone with contempt, mocking them as a nonentity
Luk 23:11
1dto be counted as nothing; the people or things the world writes off as worthless
1Co 1:281Co 6:4*2Co 10:10
1Co 6:4
In 1 Corinthians 6:4, whether the people described as "counted as nothing" are outsiders the church holds in contempt (making the clause a sarcastic question) or the congregation's own low-status members (making it a command to let them judge).
contestedA sarcastic question: surely you would not seat as judges the very people the church regards as of no account, meaning unbelieving outsiders.; Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT); Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Hermeneia); Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (BNTC)
contestedA command: appoint the church's own least-esteemed members as arbiters, since the same word describes the low-status believers God has chosen in 1 Corinthians 1:28.; Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC); Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT); Kinman, 'I Appoint the Despised as Judges!', Tyndale Bulletin 48.2 (1997) 345-54
renders the absolute verdict that the object is worth nothing at all, not merely low, so that it can be applied to whole categories of people the world treats as non-persons1Co 1:28Luk 18:9
Both
both name looking down on someone as beneath regardRom 14:3
Only despise
in English "despise" can suggest hot personal loathing or hatred, an emotional heat the Greek verb does not require; its verdict is a cold accounting that sets worth at zero
adds that the thing is cast aside as worthless, not merely turned down; when Peter quotes the rejected-stone verse he uses this stronger word in place of the Old Testament's milder "rejected after testing"Act 4:11
Both
both name refusing or casting something awayAct 4:11
Only reject
"reject" in English can be neutral (to reject an offer, a proposal) and carry no contempt at all, whereas this word always implies the object was counted as of no worth
“count as nothing”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“treat with contempt”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“set at nought”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How exoutheneō differs from similar Greek words
καταφρονέωan inward looking-down-on, a mind that holds itself above its object; the word for despising as of no account instead renders the harsher verdict that the object is worth nothing at all.
Counts the object as worth nothing at all. The word is formed from the term for "nothing," so it delivers a verdict of zero value, not merely a low opinion.1Co 1:282Co 10:10
Carries the note of rejecting or discarding the worthless thing, setting it aside as useless.Act 4:11Gal 4:14
Both
Both express holding a person in contempt, treating them as beneath one's regard, and the New Testament forbids this toward fellow believers.Rom 14:101Ti 4:12
Both can describe scorning what deserves honor: God, his people, or his gifts.1Th 5:201Co 11:22
Is a movement of the mind, thinking down on someone. It names an attitude of disdain rather than a verdict that the object is worthless.Mat 18:10Rom 2:4
Can mean simply to disregard or make light of, treating a rival claim as unimportant, and this can even be the right thing to do.Mat 6:24Heb 12:2
ἀτιμάζωto strip someone of honor within the honor system; the word for counting as nothing removes the person from the reckoning entirely, treating them as a non-person.
Built on the word for nothing, it means to reckon a person or thing as worth zero, to count as of no account. The scorn is a verdict on their value, not just a withheld honor.Luk 18:91Co 1:282Co 10:10
Carries the sense of rejecting, casting something aside as useless. It is the word for the stone the builders threw out.Act 4:11Gal 4:14
Used for looking down on a fellow believer, dismissing another Christian (or their gifts) as beneath regard.Rom 14:3Rom 14:101Th 5:20
Both
Both describe treating a person with contempt, denying them the regard they are due, and both are used of how people scorned Jesus and how the proud scorn the lowly.Mrk 12:4Luk 23:11
Built on the idea of honor, it is the exact reverse of honoring: to withhold or strip away the respect a person is genuinely owed. Jesus sets it directly opposite to honoring the Father.Jhn 8:49Rom 2:23
Names an act of shaming mistreatment, humiliating or degrading a person (even the body itself) rather than merely a low opinion of them.Mrk 12:4Rom 1:24Jas 2:6
ἀποδοκιμάζωto reject after testing, as failing an examination; counting as nothing rejects by reckoning worthless from the start (Luke swaps one word for the other when he quotes the rejected-cornerstone verse in Acts 4:11).
Contempt: treating a person as worthless and beneath notice, counting them as nothing rather than weighing and refusing them.Luk 18:9Rom 14:3Rom 14:10
Scornful mistreatment, looking down on someone as lowly or unimpressive, whether mocking a prisoner or dismissing a preacher as weak.Luk 23:112Co 10:10
God's habit of choosing exactly what people count as nothing, the despised and overlooked, to accomplish his purposes.1Co 1:28
Both
Both name the refusal to accept someone or something, and both are used for the great rejection of Psalm 118:22, the stone the builders would not have that God then made the cornerstone.Mat 21:42Act 4:11
Both fall on Christ himself: he is the one refused and cast aside by those he came to, whether the verdict is framed as failing their test or as counting him for nothing.1Pe 2:4Luk 23:11
Rejection that follows inspection: something is examined against a standard and turned down as not measuring up, like the builders who tested a stone and set it aside as unfit.Mrk 12:10Luk 20:17
A formal verdict of disqualification by those with authority to pass judgment, as when the elders and chief priests reject Jesus.Mrk 8:31Luk 9:22
Being turned away with no way back, the door of acceptance shut for good, as Esau found when he was refused the blessing.Heb 12:17
ἀθετέωto set aside or annul a claim, promise, or covenant; the word for counting as nothing is the personal verdict that a person or thing is worth nothing.
Cancels something that has binding force, treating a covenant, law, command, or pledge as null and void.Gal 3:15Mrk 7:91Ti 5:12
Rejects an authority in a way that carries through to the one who stands behind it, so that setting aside God's purpose or his messenger is a setting aside of God himself.Luk 7:301Th 4:8
exoutheneō in the other biblical languages
בָּזָהHebrew“to despise”the main Hebrew value-verdict this Greek verb translates in the Old Testament: to despise, to regard as worthless.
Carries the sharper sense of counting someone or something as nothing, as having zero worth rather than merely low worth. Paul says God chose the things the world treats as nothing at all, and Peter calls Christ the stone the builders set at naught.1Co 1:28Act 4:11
Warns believers against looking down on a fellow Christian over disputed practices or apparent weakness, contempt inside the community of faith.Rom 14:10Gal 4:14
Both
Both name treating a person as worthless and beneath regard, looking down on them with open contempt.Psa 22:6Luk 18:9
Both carry the theme of the righteous sufferer despised by people yet vindicated by God, the very language the New Testament uses of Christ himself.Isa 53:3Luk 23:11
Repeatedly names contempt aimed at what is sacred, treating holy or covenant realities as worthless: a birthright sold for food, the word of the LORD, God's own name.Gen 25:34Num 15:31Mal 1:6
Used in the prophets for a nation or ruler being made an object of scorn among the peoples, brought low and held in contempt by everyone around.Oba 1:2Jer 49:15
מָאַסHebrew“to reject”the Hebrew verb for spurning or rejecting, which this Greek verb also renders, as when Israel is said to reject God as king.
carries the flavor of counting a person or thing as nothing, a social attitude of looking down on someone as beneath your notice: the self-righteous despise everyone else, one believer looks down on another over food, and God chooses the very people the world counts as worthless.Luk 18:9Rom 14:101Co 1:28
describes the sneering contempt of mockers who treat a person as a joke: Herod and his soldiers make sport of Jesus, and critics dismiss Paul's speaking as worthless.Luk 23:112Co 10:10
is used to warn believers not to write off a person or a gift as of no account: welcome the messenger rather than brush him aside, and do not treat prophecy as beneath serious attention.1Co 16:111Th 5:20
Both
both name the act of throwing aside as worthless what proves to be of highest value: the stone the builders reject in Psalm 118:22 is the very stone the New Testament says the builders set at nothing, now become the cornerstone.Psa 118:22Act 4:11
both appear in warnings not to treat God's word or discipline as beneath your regard: do not spurn the LORD's correction, and do not despise prophecy.Pro 3:111Th 5:20
is the covenant word for casting off God himself and everything he gives: Israel rejects the LORD as their king, throws away his statutes, and refuses his instruction and correction.1Sa 8:7Lev 26:15Pro 15:32
runs the other direction too, describing God as the one who rejects: because Saul rejected the word of the LORD, God rejects him from being king, and he casts off a faithless people.1Sa 15:231Sa 15:262Ki 17:20
can deepen from refusal into loathing, a recoiling disgust: Job comes to despise his own life and turns from what he had said in dust and ashes.Job 7:16Job 42:6
בּוּזHebrew“to despise”the Hebrew verb for holding in contempt, a near-twin of the despise verb that this Greek word likewise renders.
Carries the sense of reducing something to nothing, discarding it as worthless. It is the word for the stone the builders threw aside and for the lowly and looked-down-on people God deliberately chose to shame the strong.Act 4:111Co 1:28
Names contempt aimed inside the believing community: looking down on a fellow Christian over disputable matters of food and observance, or brushing aside a coworker or a prophetic word as beneath notice.Rom 14:3Rom 14:101Th 5:20
Both
Both mean to treat a person or thing as worthless and hold it in open contempt, looking down on it as beneath regard.Luk 18:9Pro 30:17
The wisdom writings' word for the fool's contempt: despising wisdom, instruction, correction, and a word of counsel is the mark of the person who refuses to learn.Pro 1:7Pro 13:13Pro 23:9
Frames contempt toward another person as a moral failure and a sin, especially the scorn shown to a neighbor or to one's own aging parents.Pro 11:12Pro 14:21Pro 23:22
Reaches past people to things: a spoken message can be written off as worth nothing, and so can a speaker's delivery or the sickly state he arrives in. The Hebrew בּוּז stays with persons and their standing; ἐξουθενέω can be aimed at prophecy, at preaching, or at a body.1Th 5:202Co 10:10Gal 4:14
Names something Christians are told to stop doing to each other. It comes as a direct order addressed to the person doing the writing off, whether the disagreement is over food or over how much weight a young colleague deserves, so the word functions as a rebuke of the one who holds the low opinion.Rom 14:3Rom 14:101Co 16:11
Marks a verdict God reverses. The builders' throwaway stone becomes the cornerstone, and the people the world counts as nothing are precisely the ones God picks, so being counted as nothing becomes a mark of honor rather than a fair assessment. Nowhere is such a verdict presented as deserved.Act 4:111Co 1:281Co 6:4
Both
Both capture the comfortable and self-assured writing off the people below them. Those living at ease hold the ruined in contempt, and the proud pour scorn on the afflicted; in the same way, men certain of their own righteousness counted everyone else as nothing.Job 12:5Psa 123:4Luk 18:9
English Bibles reach for the same two words for both, "contempt" and "despise," and rightly so: the psalmist is filled with contempt from the proud, and Herod treats Jesus with contempt. Both name a person being reduced to nothing in the eyes of others, and both are the sort of treatment the faithful pray to be rid of.Psa 123:3Psa 119:22Luk 23:11
Contempt is something God himself hands out, poured over rulers and nobles as a judgment that strips their standing in public. In the New Testament ἐξουθενέω is never God's act; here the scorn is deliberately sent by God against the powerful.Job 12:21Psa 107:40
Can be contempt a person genuinely has coming. A twisted mind ends up held in contempt, and contempt walks in the door alongside wickedness, so the word can name scorn as the fitting result of how someone has lived rather than a misjudgment of them.Pro 12:8Pro 18:3
Works as a threat feared in advance, strong enough to steer what a person does or keep him quiet: Judah covers his tracks so he will not become an object of scorn, and Job says dread of what the clans would say could have silenced him. The Greek word never appears as something dreaded ahead of time.Gen 38:23Job 31:34
What scholars say about exoutheneō
The major lexica converge on the core sense. BDAG gives three graded senses (disdain/despise; reject disdainfully; treat with contempt in the sense of maltreat), Louw-Nida place it in the despise/scorn subdomain (88.192) glossing it "of no value whatever," and both Spicq (TLNT) and Balz (EDNT) stress its position at the extreme axiological end of the contempt vocabulary, rendering the verdict "reduce to zero." The verb is built from ek + outhen/ouden ("nothing"); the outhen spelling belongs to the more literary Septuagint translators and to Mark, Luke, and Paul, while later books show ouden forms. Moulton-Milligan document a legal-papyrus sense "annul, void" (BGU IV.1117.31). It is essentially a Septuagintal / Jewish-Greek word, rare in classical prose (Josephus, BJ 6.311, is the main pagan-literary attestation), translating the Hebrew value-verdicts bazah, ma'as, and buz. Luke and Paul develop it into a Leitwort of reversal, climaxing in 1 Corinthians 1:28 (the "counted-as-nothing" whom God chose, alongside "the things that are not") and in Acts 4:11, where Luke deliberately substitutes it for the Septuagint's apedokimasan ("rejected") in the cornerstone citation of Psalm 118:22.
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
BDAG (Danker), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed., s.v. ἐξουθενέωlexicon
Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 88.192lexicon
Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. ἐξουθενέωdictionary
Balz, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), s.v. ἐξουθενέωdictionary
Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἐξουθενέωlexicon
Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT)commentary
Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC)commentary
Kinman, 'I Appoint the Despised as Judges!', Tyndale Bulletin 48.2 (1997) 345-54article