StrongerBible

karpos

καρπός

GreekG2590fruit, harvest, ...

Appears 66 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 3:8Mat 3:10Mat 7:16Mat 7:17 (2×)Mat 7:18 (2×)Mat 7:19Mat 7:20Mat 12:33 (3×)Mat 13:8Mat 13:26Mat 21:19Mat 21:34 (2×)Mat 21:41Mat 21:43Mrk 4:7Mrk 4:8Mrk 4:29Mrk 11:14Mrk 12:2Luk 1:42Luk 3:8Luk 3:9Luk 6:43 (2×)Luk 6:44Luk 12:17Luk 20:10Jhn 15:16Act 2:30Gal 5:22Eph 5:9Php 1:222Ti 2:6Jas 3:17Jas 3:18Rev 22:2
Names & words formed with this
Word studykar-POSSnoun

What karpos means

fruit: what something yields, whether the produce of a plant or the result a life, action, or work brings forth.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

At its root this word names the produce a plant gives: the figs on a fig tree, the grapes of a vineyard, the grain a field puts up. From there it stretches by a natural picture into everything else that bears fruit. Just as a tree shows what it is by what grows on it, so a person, a deed, or a labor shows what it is by what it produces. The whole range hangs on that one image, so the word never really changes its meaning; it only changes what is doing the producing.

That single picture is why the New Testament can move so easily from orchards to character to offspring without explanation. John the Baptist tells people to bear fruit worthy of repentance, Jesus says a tree is known by its fruit and so is a person, Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, and Luke calls a child the fruit of the womb. None of these is a separate dictionary word; each is the same harvest picture pointed at something new.

So the senses below are shades of one meaning, not rival meanings. The literal produce of the ground is the base. The result a life or deed brings forth, the gain a work returns, and the offspring a body produces are all the same word saying that you can tell what a thing is by what comes out of it.

Nuances

1athe produce of a plant: the fruit, grain, or crop that a tree, vine, or field yields.
Mat 3:10Mat 7:17 (2×)Mat 7:18 (2×)Mat 7:19Mat 12:33 (3×)Mat 13:8Mat 13:26Mat 21:19Mat 21:34 (2×)Mat 21:41Mrk 4:7Mrk 4:8
1bthe fruit of a life: the visible result of conduct and character, good or bad, by which a person is known.
Mat 3:8Mat 7:16Mat 7:20Mat 21:43Luk 3:8Luk 3:9Jhn 15:2Jhn 15:4Jhn 15:5Jhn 15:8Jhn 15:16Rom 6:21
1cthe gain a work returns: the profit, benefit, or yield that an action, labor, or gift brings in.
Rom 1:13Rom 15:28Php 1:22Php 4:17Heb 13:15
1doffspring: a child as the fruit of the body, in the idioms "fruit of the womb" and "fruit of the loins."
Luk 1:42Act 2:30

What scholars say about karpos

The standard lexica treat this as a single word with a literal base and a wide figurative reach rather than as homonyms. BDAG lays out the produce of plants, then the figurative "fruit" of a deed or activity (advantage, gain, result), then the offspring idiom "fruit of the womb" and "fruit of the loins," all under one entry. Louw-Nida likewise distribute it across semantic domains (the literal produce, the figurative result or outcome, and offspring) while keeping it one lexeme, which reflects that the senses are connected by a live metaphor, not split by accident of spelling. The figurative use is not a Greek novelty: in the Greek Old Testament this word routinely renders the Hebrew word for fruit, which already carried the same double duty for crops and for the fruit of conduct and of the body, so the New Testament writers inherited a ready-made image. The theological dictionaries (TDNT, the newer NIDNTTE) trace how prophetic and wisdom usage of bearing good or bad fruit fed the Gospel sayings about knowing a tree, and a person, by its fruit, and how Paul develops the harvest picture into the fruit of the Spirit set against the works of the flesh. None of these works posits separate roots; the consensus is one word, one underlying image.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed., s.v. καρπόςlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. καρπόςlexicon
  • Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed., §3.33, §42.13, §10.30lexicon
  • Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), s.v. καρπός, καρποφορέω (F. Hauck)dictionary
  • Moises Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDNTTE), 2nd ed. (2014), s.v. καρπόςdictionary

All attested forms of καρπός

accusative m s

καρπὸν, καρπόν

Mat 3:8, Mat 3:10, Mat 7:19, Mat 12:33, Mat 12:33, Mat 13:26, Mrk 4:7, Mrk 4:8

accusative m p

καρποὺς, καρπούς

Mat 7:17, Mat 7:17, Mat 7:18, Mat 7:18, Mat 21:34, Mat 21:41, Mat 21:43, Luk 3:8

nominative m s

καρπὸς, καρπός

Mat 21:19, Luk 1:42, Jhn 15:16, Gal 5:22, Eph 5:9, Php 1:22, Jas 3:18, Mrk 4:29

genitive m p

καρπῶν

Mat 7:16, Mat 7:20, Mat 21:34, Mrk 12:2, 2Ti 2:6, Jas 3:17

genitive m s

καρποῦ

Mat 12:33, Luk 6:44, Luk 20:10, Act 2:30