hard, wearying work; toil that costs real sweat, strength, and fatigue.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is not the neutral word for work or a task. It points to work that wears a person out: labor that costs sweat, effort, and exhaustion. The verb behind it first meant to strike or beat, and the noun keeps that flavor of being worn down.
In the letters of Paul it becomes almost a badge of honor for the draining work of spreading the good news and caring for churches. He stacks it into his lists of hardships, and he pairs it again and again with a companion word for grinding hardship (μόχθος), so that "labor and hardship" becomes a set phrase for a life poured out in service. The well-known "labor of love" is not a sentimental phrase; it names real, tiring work done because of love.
Unlike the broad word for a deed or a task (ἔργον), which simply describes what is done, this word always carries the cost of the doing: the tiredness left in the worker afterward.
trouble or bother imposed on someone; the burden of being pestered or worn down.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
In this sense the word turns outward: it names the trouble or bother that one person lays on another. It appears in a fixed expression best translated "to cause trouble," and it always means to burden, pester, or wear someone down.
Jesus uses it when the disciples scold the woman who anoints him: "Why do you trouble her?" A sleepy neighbor uses it to wave off a late-night request, a worn-down judge finally helps a widow only so she will stop pestering him, and Paul asks that no one give him further trouble. The picture underneath is the same as the other sense: the weariness has simply shifted from the worker to the person being bothered.
the Greek always carries the note of draining, exhausting effort, and in Paul it becomes an almost technical term for the wearying work of gospel ministry; plain English "labour" carries neither.1Co 15:581Th 2:9
Both
both name real, hard physical work.Jhn 4:38
Only labour
English "labour" can mean neutral paid employment, the workforce, or the pains of childbirth, connotations the Greek word does not carry.
“toil”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“weariness”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“trouble”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How kopos differs from similar Greek words
μόχθοςthe grinding hardship and drudgery of hard work; where this word stresses the wearying exertion, that one stresses the painful struggle, and the two are repeatedly paired as "labor and hardship."
ἔργονthe neutral word for a work, deed, or task, describing what is done without any note of exhaustion; this word adds the fatigue and cost of the doing.
πόνοςhard labor felt as pain or distress; it leans toward the suffering the work causes, where this word leans toward the weariness it leaves behind.
κοπιάωthe matching verb, to toil to the point of exhaustion or to grow weary; this word is its noun, the wearying labor itself.
Names the wearing cost of the work itself, the exhaustion it leaves behind, and it regularly stands beside a second word for grinding hardship or beside sleepless nights, hunger and cold.1Th 2:92Th 3:82Co 11:272Co 6:5
Can mean the trouble one person makes for another, so it is the ordinary word for "bother" or "hassle": Jesus asks why the crowd is giving the woman a hard time, a sleeping neighbor tells the caller to stop pestering him, and Paul asks that nobody trouble him further.Mat 26:10Mrk 14:6Luk 11:7Gal 6:17
Treated as a body of completed work that can be counted up, walked into, paid for, boasted about, or finally rested from, which is why it can appear in the plural as somebody's accumulated labors.Jhn 4:381Co 3:82Co 10:15Rev 14:13
Both
Both name effort that costs a Christian something and that God takes note of, and both are tied closely to love. Hebrews puts them a verse apart, praising the labor already spent on other believers and then asking for the same eagerness to be shown right to the end.Heb 6:101Th 1:3Heb 6:112Co 8:7
Both belong to appeals against slacking off, so meeting either word in an exhortation carries the force of "keep at it, and do not let it come to nothing".1Co 15:581Th 3:5Rom 12:11Heb 6:11
Can mean plain physical speed, a person moving quickly to get somewhere: Herodias's daughter hurries in to the king, and Mary sets off quickly for the hill country.Mrk 6:25Luk 1:39
Names an eagerness inside the person rather than the work outside them, an attitude that can be told to keep from going slack, that colors how a leader leads, and that God can place in someone's heart.Rom 12:11Rom 12:82Co 8:16
Is something a person brings to a task at the start, an all-out readiness put into an undertaking before any results exist, as when readers are told to bring every bit of it to their faith.2Pe 1:5Jud 1:3
Functions as the proof that grief or love is sincere: the Corinthians' change of heart produced it, and Paul points to how much of it others have shown in order to test whether his readers' love is real.2Co 7:112Co 7:122Co 8:8
kopos in the other biblical languages
עָמָלHebrew“trouble”the closest Hebrew counterpart, which like this word means both wearying toil and the trouble or misery it brings; Hebrew holds both senses in one word where Greek tends to keep them apart.
Names the toil itself as wearying physical exertion, the kind that leaves a body tired, and so is used as a plain word for hard work and its cost.1Th 2:92Co 11:27
Turns positive: the labor poured into serving God and others is honored as valuable and remembered, not lamented as a curse.1Co 15:58Rev 14:131Th 1:3
Used in the everyday idiom of bothering or troubling a person, as when someone is told to stop being a nuisance.Mat 26:10Luk 11:7Luk 18:5
Both
Both name strenuous labor felt as a burden, work that tires the worker out, so the Greek word is a natural counterpart when the toil is the effort itself.Ecc 2:101Co 3:8
Both can extend from the work to the hardship and weariness that come with it, the trouble a person bears in the course of laboring.Job 5:72Co 6:5
Carries a moral edge the Greek word lacks: it can mean the harm or mischief a wicked person hatches and inflicts, shading into iniquity.Psa 10:7Psa 7:14Pro 24:2
Names trouble and misery as undeserved suffering one endures, the weary grief of a hard life rather than effort spent on a task.Job 3:10Psa 25:18Psa 90:10
In Ecclesiastes it becomes the keyword for human labor judged as wearisome and finally profitless, work whose gain slips away under the sun.Ecc 1:3Ecc 2:11Ecc 2:22
יְגִיעַHebrew“toil”toil and, by extension, what one's toil produces; it stresses the labor together with its hard-won fruit.
κόπος can name the trouble or bother that one person makes for another. It works as a set phrase for pestering or inconveniencing someone, used to tell them to stop: "Why do you trouble this woman?"Mat 26:10Luk 11:7Gal 6:17
Both
Both words name wearying, strenuous labor: the exhausting effort of hard work.Gen 31:422Co 11:271Th 2:9
יגיע often points not to the working itself but to what the working yields: the earnings, crops, or wealth a person gains by labor, which can then be eaten, seized, or handed over to someone else.Deu 28:33Psa 128:2Ezk 23:29
Works as an everyday word for causing a person trouble or bother: to give someone kopos is to weary or pester them, a sense that fixes on the annoyance one person inflicts on another rather than on hard work itself.Mat 26:10Mrk 14:6Luk 11:7Luk 18:5
Names the wearying labor of the gospel worker that looks toward reward and final rest: it is the missionary's exhausting service, set against the wages and the rest it will one day earn.1Co 3:81Th 1:3Rev 2:2Rev 14:13
Both
Both name wearying, exhausting labor that wears a person down: the toil that costs sleep and produces anxious bread on the Hebrew side, and the work pressed on through night and day to the point of hardship on the Greek side.Psa 127:21Th 2:92Co 11:27
Carries the burden of the curse on fallen life: it names the heavy, sorrowful labor pronounced after Eden, the toil that marks human existence under judgment.Gen 3:16
Reaches beyond physical work to a wounding edge and the fruits of toil: it can describe a hurtful word that stirs up anger, the hard-won possessions labor produces, and even a discarded, fashioned object.Pro 15:1Pro 5:10Jer 22:28
Can be spoken of with dignity and even profit: the wisdom writers grant that honest toil yields real gain, a neutral-to-positive valence the word holds without contradiction.Pro 14:23Pro 10:22
What scholars say about kopos
The standard New Testament lexicons (BDAG, LSJ) recognize two settled senses for the noun, both rooted in the underlying verb kopto, "to strike, beat," and its derived sense of being beaten down into weariness. The first is "trouble, difficulty," attested almost entirely in the fixed idiom kopon/kopous parechein tini, "to cause someone trouble" (Matt 26:10;Mark 14:6;Luke 11:7; 18:5; Gal 6:17). The second and dominant sense is "work that involves intense effort and exertion; labor, toil." Hauck (TDNT 3:827-830) and Balz (EDNT 2:307) trace how the second sense becomes a near-technical Pauline term for the exhausting labor of missionary and pastoral work, frequently coordinated with mochthos ("hardship"); Harnack's early study documented kopos and its cognate verb as characteristic vocabulary for early Christian ministerial effort. No live dispute attaches to either sense.
Friedrich Hauck, "κόπος, κοπιάω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 3:827-830dictionary
Horst Balz, "κόπος," in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT) 2:307dictionary
Adolf von Harnack, "Κόπος (Κοπιᾶν, Οἱ Κοπιῶντες) im frühchristlichen Sprachgebrauch," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 27 (1928): 1-10article