The word is built from the Greek word for "many" (πολύς) plus an ending that turns a quantity into a count of occasions, much the way English turns "three" into "three times." Greek makes a small family of words this way, including "seven times" (ἑπτάκις) and the question "how many times?" (ποσάκις). So it tallies rather than measures: the claim is that something happened on many separate occasions, not that it happens at a steady rate.
In use it stretches across everything English covers with "often," "many times," and "again and again":
a symptom that keeps recurring, as with the boy whose seizures throw him into fire and into water
a plan formed and blocked over and over, as when Paul says he had many times meant to come to Rome
a settled habit of place, as when Judas knows the garden because Jesus had met there with his disciples many times
a running tally of hardship, as when Paul counts up sleepless nights and days without food
Hebrews leans on the word harder than anyone. There it is the deliberate opposite of "once for all" (ἅπαξ): priests stand day after day offering the same sacrifices many times over, and if Christ's offering worked the same way he would have had to suffer many times since the world began. The argument of Hebrews 9 and 10 turns on repetition against finality, and this small adverb is what carries the repetition.
counts up separate occasions rather than describing a rate, which is why it fits comfortably in a bare list of instances with no verb at all2Co 11:272Co 11:23
Both
both simply say that something happened on many occasionsJhn 18:2Rom 1:13
Only often
English "often" leans toward a settled habit or a regular rhythm, which the Greek does not claim on its own
“many times”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“oftentimes”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“frequently”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“repeatedly”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How pollakis differs from similar Greek words
ἅπαξthe opposite pole: "once," and in Hebrews "once for all," a single act that never needs repeating.
Reports action repeated an unstated number of times, describing a habit rather than giving a count: the garden was a place Jesus went to again and again, Paul kept planning a visit, and Onesiphorus kept coming to cheer him up.Jhn 18:2Rom 1:132Ti 1:16
In Hebrews it turns repetition into evidence of weakness: a sacrifice that has to be brought over and over has not finished its work, and the priest who stands offering the same sacrifices day after day never takes sins away.Heb 9:25Heb 10:11
Piles up recurring suffering and danger, stacking how many times the same harm came: the boy thrown again and again into fire and water, Paul close to death many times and going hungry many times.Mat 17:15Mrk 9:222Co 11:232Co 11:27
Marks repeated effort that keeps failing to hold: the man had been tied up many times and snapped the chains every time, and Paul kept punishing believers trying to force them to give up their faith.Mrk 5:4Act 26:11
Repetition can be plainly good or simply neutral: rain that falls again and again on the ground makes it fruitful, and a helper tested again and again proves reliable.Heb 6:72Co 8:22
Both
Both answer the same question, "how many times?", which is why Hebrews can set them against each other inside one sentence: repeated suffering would have been needed since the world began, but Jesus appeared one time at the end of the ages.Heb 9:26
Both do ordinary counting with no weight of their own, and Paul uses them side by side in the same list of hardships: stoned one time, close to death many times.2Co 11:252Co 11:23
Marks an act done one time that never has to be done again, which is the backbone of Hebrews' argument about the death of Jesus: one offering settles the matter for good, and worshippers cleansed one time have no lingering guilt.Heb 9:281Pe 3:18Heb 10:2
Counts a single instance in ordinary life and worship, even when that single instance sits inside a repeating pattern: a person dies one time, and the high priest went into the innermost room one time each year.Heb 9:27Heb 9:7
Describes teaching handed over one time and settled, so that it is received and guarded rather than reopened, and readers are told they were fully informed one time already.Jud 1:3Jud 1:5
Points forward to a single closing event: the promise that God will shake heaven and earth one more time, and the writer's comment that the words "one more time" mean the shaking will finish the present order.Heb 12:26Heb 12:27
Works as a plain tally of one time, and joins with "twice" in the set phrase rendered "once and again", where naming one time and then a second adds up to help sent repeatedly.2Co 11:25Php 4:161Th 2:18
πυκνόςdescribes something as frequent or close together in time, a rhythm or habit, rather than counting up how many occasions there were.
It counts up how many separate occasions there were, so it stacks naturally in a tally of experiences: Paul piles it into his list of hardships, at risk of death many times, on the road many times, hungry and cold many times.2Co 11:232Co 11:262Co 11:27
Because it is about the number of times, it can carry the weight of an argument about that number: Hebrews insists Christ did not have to offer himself many times over, unlike a priest who stands and repeats the same sacrifices again and again.Heb 9:25Heb 9:26Heb 10:11
It reports how many times something struck a person without claiming any settled rhythm to it: the boy is thrown into fire and water many times, and he had been chained up many times.Mat 17:15Mrk 9:22Mrk 5:4
Both
Both are commonly rendered "often" in English, and both say an action came back again and again over a stretch of time: Jesus often met with his disciples in that garden, and John's disciples often fasted.Jhn 18:2Luk 5:33
Both can describe how one person repeatedly dealt with another over a period: Paul punished believers many times in the synagogues, and Felix kept summoning Paul for conversation.Act 26:11Act 24:26
It can describe the thing itself as frequent rather than counting the times an action happened, which is why Timothy's ailments can be called "frequent" as a standing feature of his health.1Ti 5:23
It measures a rate that can go up or down, so it works for saying someone did something more frequently than before: Felix started sending for Paul at shorter and shorter intervals.Act 24:26
It names a settled habit, a practice kept up at close intervals rather than a total of occasions: the fasting of John's disciples is described as their regular pattern alongside their praying.Luk 5:33
ποσάκιςthe question form of the same idea: "how many times?", used when someone is asking or exclaiming rather than reporting.
States plainly that something did happen again and again, without asking anything. It simply reports the count as a fact of the record.Jhn 18:22Ti 1:162Co 8:22
Describes a recurring affliction or a settled pattern of behavior, the kind of thing that keeps coming back on its own.Mat 17:15Mrk 9:22Mrk 5:4
Piles up repeated hardship in a list, where the point is the sheer number of times something was endured.2Co 11:232Co 11:262Co 11:27
Carries the weight of an argument, where having to do a thing over and over is itself the proof that the thing never finished the job.Heb 9:25Heb 9:26Heb 10:11
Both
Both count repeated occasions without ever naming a figure. Neither word says how many; each only insists that the times were many.Mrk 5:4Mat 18:21
Both can measure repeated attempts that never reached their goal, so the tally becomes a record of thwarted intention.Rom 1:13Mat 23:37
Asks for an actual number, putting the limit of a repeated action up for decision. Peter wants to know where forgiving stops.Mat 18:21
Works as a cry of longing rather than a real question. No answer is expected; the count is invoked to measure how much love was offered and refused.Mat 23:37Luk 13:34
pollakis in the other biblical languages
פַּעַםHebrew“beat”Hebrew has no single-word adverb for "often": it uses the noun for an occasion or a stroke, usually in the plural with "many," to say "many times."
It is only an adverb of frequency. It says "often" and stops there: it never names a particular occasion, and it never tells you how many times, so a reader is left with a pattern rather than a tally.Jhn 18:2Rom 1:132Co 11:26
The letter to the Hebrews turns the word into an argument: what has to be done again and again is by that very fact unfinished, so the priests who keep repeating the same offerings are set against a sacrifice made once for all.Heb 9:25Heb 9:26Heb 10:11
It describes a standing pattern in someone's life rather than a series of incidents anyone counted: an affliction that keeps coming back, a restraint tried over and over, a kindness repeatedly shown.Mat 17:15Mrk 5:42Ti 1:16
Both
Hebrew has no single word for "often", so it builds the idea out of two: the noun for an occasion in the plural with "many" beside it. That is why one Bible reads "many times" in the Old Testament and "often" in the New, for what is the same thought.Ecc 7:22Psa 106:43Php 3:182Co 8:22
Both make the repetition itself the point of the sentence. It is not incidental that the thing happened again; the piling up is what the writer wants the reader to feel.Psa 106:43Heb 10:11
Both can total up someone's repeated behavior so that the count becomes the charge against them, whether a people testing God or a man persecuting believers.Num 14:22Jdg 16:15Act 26:11
It is a noun, a single occasion or stroke, so it can be counted exactly: once, twice, three times, seven times, ten times. The number sits next to it and does the counting.Jos 6:42Ki 5:10Job 19:3Job 33:29
Because it names one occasion, it can point at the present one and mark it off from all the others: "this time", the moment that is finally different.Gen 2:23Gen 29:35Jdg 16:28
Put a large number with it and it multiplies rather than repeats, so it becomes a way of asking for increase: a hundred times as many, a thousand times as many.Deu 1:112Sa 24:3
It keeps concrete physical meanings that the Greek adverb has none of, all of them variations on a footfall: a foot, a person's steps, the beat of chariot hoofs, even the four feet a piece of furniture stands on.Psa 17:52Ki 19:24Jdg 5:28Exo 25:12
What scholars say about pollakis
BDAG glosses πολλάκις simply as "many times, often, frequently" with no subdivision, and LSJ gives the same range for classical usage, noting its standing opposition to ἅπαξ. Morphologically it is the multiplicative adverb of πολύς, formed with the numeral-adverb suffix -άκις that also produces ποσάκις, ὁσάκις, and ἑπτάκις; Blass, Debrunner and Funk treat the whole set under the numeral adverbs. Louw and Nida file it in the domain of time, under frequency. In the Septuagint it regularly renders the Hebrew idiom פְּעָמִים רַבּוֹת, "many times," since Biblical Hebrew has no one-word adverb of frequency and expresses the notion with the plural of פַּעַם plus רַב. The clustering of the word in Hebrews 9 and 10 is rhetorically deliberate rather than incidental: Attridge and Ellingworth both observe that the repeated offerings of the levitical priesthood are set in antithesis to the ἐφάπαξ character of Christ's self-offering, so that the adverb functions as a structural marker of the letter's argument about cultic repetition and finality.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. πολλάκιςlexicon
LSJ, s.v. πολλάκιςlexicon
J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domain 67 (Time), s.v. πολλάκιςlexicon
F. Blass, A. Debrunner and R. W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, on the numeral adverbs in -άκιςgrammar
Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), on Hebrews 9:25 to 26commentary
Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), on Hebrews 9:25 to 26 and 10:11commentary