to stay on with: to keep staying in a place, beside a person, or with something you have committed to, instead of moving on
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Greek builds this verb from the everyday word for staying, μένω, plus a prefix meaning "toward" or "alongside". That prefix does the work. The plain verb only says that someone did not leave; this one names what kept them there, so the staying always has something it is aimed at: a place a person was asked to stay in, someone they would not walk away from, a gift or a habit they refused to drop.
That is why one word covers scenes that look unrelated. Paul is asked to stay on in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:3). A hungry crowd has stayed with Jesus for three days (Mark 8:2). New believers in Antioch are urged to stay with the Lord they have only just come to (Acts 11:23). A widow keeps at her prayers night and day (1 Timothy 5:5). In each case the person could reasonably have moved on, and did not.
By itself the word says nothing about effort or strain, and that is where its close neighbors part company from it. ὑπομένω means holding out under pressure, and προσκαρτερέω is a persistence that borders on stubbornness. This verb is quieter than either. It simply keeps someone in place, and leaves the surrounding story to say whether that cost them anything.
Nuances
1ato stay on in a place: to remain there longer rather than move along
TranslatabilityDirect
Act 18:181Ti 1:3
1bto stay with a person: to keep close to someone instead of leaving them
Mat 15:32Mrk 8:2
1cto hold fast to something: to stay with a commitment, a gift, or a settled practice
The Greek adds an attachment to whatever is being stayed with, so it can mean holding fast to a person or to a gift already received.Act 11:23Act 13:43
Both
Both plainly say that the person did not leave.Act 18:18
Only remain
English "remain" can mean nothing more than being left over or left behind, with no attachment to anything involved.
“stay”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“tarry”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“continue in”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How prosmenō differs from similar Greek words
μένωThe plain and very common verb for staying or remaining, wide enough to cover lodging in a house or abiding in Christ; this compound narrows it to staying with someone or something in particular.
It never stands on its own. All seven of its uses name either the people being stayed with or the one thing being held to, so it is never said of something that merely lasts: a crowd stays by Jesus, new believers hold to the Lord, a widow holds to her prayers.Mat 15:32Act 11:231Ti 5:5
Its force is keeping on past the point where leaving would be the natural thing to do. Timothy is asked to stay behind at Ephesus while Paul travels ahead, Paul himself stays on in Corinth for a good many days more before sailing, and the crowd has already been three days with Jesus and has nothing to eat.1Ti 1:3Act 18:18Mat 15:32Mrk 8:2
What is held to can be an activity kept up without a break, not only a person or a teaching: the widow worth the church's support "continues" in her requests and prayers night and day.1Ti 5:5
Both
Both are used for staying on in a place, or with people, for a stretch of time instead of moving along, and both come with the days counted: three months with Elizabeth, two days with the Samaritans, a request at Ephesus that Paul stay longer, and Paul's own extra days in Corinth.Luk 1:56Jhn 4:40Act 18:20Act 18:181Ti 1:3
Both can mean holding on to a person or a commitment rather than falling away, and both turn up as an appeal to do so: "if you continue in my word" and "continue in what you have learned" on the one side, "hold to the Lord with all your heart" and "continue in the grace of God" on the other.Jhn 8:312Ti 3:14Act 11:23Act 13:43
What stays does not have to be a person. Money not yet handed over still "remained" the owner's own, a town would have "remained" standing to this day, a wrecked ship's bow stuck fast and "remained" unmoved, and a builder's work either "stands" the test or burns up.Act 5:4Mat 11:23Act 27:411Co 3:14
It can mean lasting for ever, with nothing at all named to stay with. Faith, hope and love simply "abide", God's word "endures" for ever, the Messiah "remains" for ever, and a priest who is never replaced "continues" without end.1Co 13:131Pe 1:25Jhn 12:34Heb 7:24
This is the word John uses for a staying that runs both ways, where each side stays in the other: "abide in me, and I in you", the one who eats and drinks "abides in me, and I in him", "we abide in him and he in us".Jhn 15:4Jhn 6:561Jn 4:13
It also covers staying as you are, holding a settled condition rather than keeping anyone company: Paul says it is good for the unmarried to "remain" single, thinks a widow is happier if she "stays" that way, and tells each person to "remain" in the situation they were in when God called them.1Co 7:81Co 7:401Co 7:20
ἐπιμένωAlso means "stay on", and is the closest overlap of all; it leans toward keeping up a course or a position, as in staying on in a city or persisting in sin.
What is held onto can be a person rather than a place or a course. A hungry crowd stays by Jesus for three days, and new believers in Antioch are urged to stay with the Lord himself. The staying is loyalty to someone, not merely time spent in their company.Mat 15:32Mrk 8:2Act 11:23
The staying can be aimed at God as the one a person looks to. A widow left on her own keeps on at her prayers night and day, and that unbroken turning toward him is what the word names.1Ti 5:5
Both
Both report that a traveler stayed on in a city instead of moving along, and both often count the stay in days. Paul says he will stay on in Ephesus until Pentecost, and he later asks Timothy to stay on in that same city.1Co 16:8Act 21:41Ti 1:3Act 18:18
Both can name keeping hold of what God has given rather than drifting away from it. One urges believers to keep on in God's kindness and in the faith they were taught; the other has Paul and Barnabas pressing new converts to keep on in the grace of God.Rom 11:22Col 1:23Act 13:43
This word can stand next to a second verb to say that someone went on doing what they had already begun. A crowd keeps on asking Jesus a question he will not answer, and Peter keeps on knocking at a door nobody will open.Jhn 8:7Act 12:16
It says nothing about whether the thing kept up is good, so it can name persistence in what is wrong: going on in sin, or going on in refusing to believe. All it reports is that a person will not stop.Rom 6:1Rom 11:23
It can also mean staying alive, going on in this body instead of leaving it. Paul weighs his own death against remaining here because the churches still need him.Php 1:24
παραμένωTo remain at someone's side, especially in lasting service or an unbroken office, where this word is content to say that a person stayed with another for a while.
This word takes a stretch of time and lets it be counted. The hungry crowd has been with Jesus three days, and Paul stays on in Corinth a good many days before sailing. No such measurement is ever attached to παραμένω.Mat 15:32Mrk 8:2Act 18:18
It can name a place rather than a person. Paul asks Timothy to stay behind at Ephesus while he himself travels on. παραμένω always stays with someone, or with something a person is holding to, never simply somewhere on a map.1Ti 1:3Act 18:18
This is the word people get urged into. Barnabas presses the new believers at Antioch to stay with the Lord they have only just come to, and later Paul and Barnabas plead with a crowd to keep hold of God's kindness. παραμένω is never used to push anyone to stay.Act 11:23Act 13:43
Both
Both mean staying on beside people instead of moving along, and both leave it to the surrounding story to say what the stay cost. Paul thinks he may stay with the Corinthians, and the crowd around Jesus has stayed with him for days.1Co 16:6Mat 15:32
Both reach past staying near a person to sticking with something a person has taken on. James describes someone who looks hard into God's perfect teaching and then stays with it rather than walking off and forgetting it, and Paul describes a widow who stays at her prayers night and day.Jas 1:251Ti 5:5
Both are the everyday verb for staying with a short piece added to the front that points the staying at someone or something. English versions blur the two together: the priests who could not go on and the crowd told to keep hold of God's kindness are both rendered "continue", so nothing in a translation tells a reader which of the two words is there.Heb 7:23Act 13:43
Only this word is used of staying on in a post. Hebrews explains why Israel had so many priests one after another: death kept stopping them from continuing in the job, so the office had to keep changing hands. Nothing like a role or a term of service is ever attached to προσμένω.Heb 7:23
What threatens the staying here is being taken away, not losing interest. Paul is weighing his own death against going on living, and what he expects is that he will be kept with his readers a while longer for their growth and gladness.Php 1:25
When Paul uses it of people, he is making a promise about himself: he says what he intends to do, rather than reporting a stay that is already over or pressing someone else to stay. With the Corinthians he is willing to talk of a whole winter.1Co 16:6Php 1:25
προσκαρτερέωTo stick doggedly to something, the stronger word for unrelenting devotion, used of the church holding to prayer and teaching; this verb describes the same steadiness without the note of effort.
Marks energetic, effortful devotion: giving oneself resolutely and without letup to an activity, pressing on in it as a settled discipline.Act 2:42Act 6:4Rom 12:12
Covers close attendance on a person or standing ready in active service: waiting on someone, keeping near at hand, holding a thing at the ready.Mrk 3:9Act 10:7Rom 13:6
διατρίβωLuke's plain word for spending time somewhere, reporting where a person was and for how long with no hint that the stay meant attachment to anyone; this word keeps the attachment.
What it most naturally completes is a person you stay with, not a place you stay in. The crowd had stayed with Jesus three days when he said he had compassion on them (Matthew 15:32, and again in Mark 8:2). The staying is toward someone.Mat 15:32Mrk 8:2
It stretches from staying put to staying true, and in several verses no location is in view at all. Barnabas urged the new believers at Antioch to hold to the Lord with settled hearts (Acts 11:23), Paul and Barnabas urged their hearers to continue in the grace of God (Acts 13:43), and the widow who is truly alone keeps on in her prayers night and day (1 Timothy 5:5).Act 11:23Act 13:431Ti 5:5
Because it can mean holding on, it is the word for staying at a post someone else assigned you: Paul left Timothy behind and asked him to stay on at Ephesus to deal with the teachers there (1 Timothy 1:3).1Ti 1:3
Both
Both can report a plain stop on a journey, settling in one place instead of moving on. Paul and his companions spent some days at Philippi (Acts 16:12), and Paul stayed on at Corinth a good while longer before sailing for Syria (Acts 18:18).Act 16:12Act 18:18
Both can put a count of days on the stay, so English renders either one "stayed" or "remained" without loss: seven days at Troas (Acts 20:6) and three days with Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 15:32).Act 20:6Mat 15:32
It reports plainly where someone was and for how long, with no suggestion that the stay meant loyalty or attachment to anyone. It covers the movements of people with no stake in the church at all: Herod went down to Caesarea and stayed there (Acts 12:19), and Festus put in no more than eight or ten days at Jerusalem before turning to the case against Paul (Acts 25:6), then spent many days at Caesarea talking it over with Agrippa (Acts 25:14).Act 12:19Act 25:6Act 25:14
Luke uses it to measure a stop by the work packed into it, so the length of the stay doubles as a report of how much got done there: a long while at Iconium speaking boldly for the Lord (Acts 14:3), and a stay at Antioch given over to teaching and preaching the word of the Lord (Acts 15:35).Act 14:3Act 15:35
Where company is in view, the stay is still anchored to the ground and the people are named alongside it: Jesus went into the Judean countryside and stayed there with his disciples (John 3:22), and Paul and Barnabas stayed no little time with the disciples at Antioch (Acts 14:28). The staying is in a place, and the company is extra.Jhn 3:22Act 14:28
ὑπομένωTo hold out under something heavy, so endurance is built into the word itself; this one only says that a person stayed, leaving the cost to the context.
Says that people stayed at someone's side. The crowd has kept close to Jesus for three days, and the word carries their staying with him and nothing more: their hunger has to be named separately in the same sentence.Mat 15:32Mrk 8:2
Used for keeping hold of something good that has already been given. Barnabas urges the new believers in Antioch to stay with the Lord, and Paul and Barnabas urge their hearers to stay with the kindness God has shown them.Act 11:23Act 13:43
Can describe sticking with a steady practice. The widow who is genuinely alone keeps on at her requests and prayers night and day, which is devotion continued rather than pressure survived.1Ti 5:5
Both
Both can simply report that someone stayed put while others moved on. Paul stayed on in Corinth a good while and Timothy was asked to stay on in Ephesus, just as the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem and Silas and Timothy stayed behind after Paul was sent ahead.Act 18:181Ti 1:3Luk 2:43Act 17:14
Both are used to press Christians not to fall away, so English Bibles reach for the same kind of wording for each, one rendered "continue" with the Lord and the other rendered "endure" with a promise attached.Act 11:232Ti 2:12
What is stayed under is the painful thing itself: a cross, the hostile words of sinners, a long hard struggle of suffering, a beating taken for doing good, trouble of every kind. The weight is inside the word, not supplied by the sentence around it.Heb 12:2Heb 12:3Heb 10:321Pe 2:20Rom 12:122Ti 2:10
Reaches all the way to a finish line, with an outcome riding on whether the person lasts: the one who holds out to the end will be saved, those who hold out will reign with Christ, and the one who holds out under testing receives the crown of life.Mat 10:22Mat 24:13Mrk 13:132Ti 2:12Jas 1:12
Names a quality of character that can be admired in its own right. Job is famous for it, love does it with everything, and staying under God's hard training is what marks out a son.Jas 5:111Co 13:7Heb 12:7
prosmenō in the other biblical languages
דָּבַקHebrew“to cleave”The Hebrew picture standing behind the loyal side of this word: to cling or stick fast to someone, as Israel is told to cling to the LORD.
The Greek word can mean nothing more than staying on in a place longer instead of moving along, with no attachment to anyone in view. Paul stays on in Corinth for a good while before sailing, and Timothy is asked to stay put in Ephesus while Paul travels. The Hebrew word never works this way: it always names something or someone the subject is stuck to.Act 18:181Ti 1:3
What the Greek word keeps up can be an ongoing activity rather than a thing held onto, and it pairs naturally with a stretch of time: a crowd has been with Jesus three days, and a widow keeps at her prayers night and day. The Hebrew word always has an object it is fastened to, never a practice it keeps going.Mrk 8:21Ti 5:5
Both
Both words carry the call to stay attached to the Lord rather than drift away from him. Israel is told to hold fast to the LORD and not follow other gods, and Barnabas urges the new believers in Antioch to stay with the Lord with a settled heart. The Hebrew is usually rendered "hold fast" or "cling" and the Greek "continue with", but the demand is the same one.Deu 10:20Jos 23:8Act 11:23
Both describe keeping company with people you could easily have left. Ruth is told to stay close by Boaz's young women and does so through the whole harvest, and the crowd around Jesus has stayed with him for three days with nothing to eat.Rut 2:8Rut 2:23Mat 15:32
Both stretch beyond people to something given or spoken that a person refuses to let go of: the psalmist holds tight to God's instructions, and Paul and Barnabas tell new converts to stay with the grace God has shown them.Psa 119:31Act 13:43
The Hebrew word starts with bodily contact: one thing physically stuck to another so the two will not come apart. A tongue glues itself to a dry mouth, skin shrivels onto bone, a warrior's hand freezes onto his sword, and a creature's scales lock together. Nothing in the Greek word pictures touching or being fastened at all.Job 19:20Psa 22:152Sa 23:10Job 41:17
Because sticking close can be hostile, the Hebrew word is used of pursuit: a chaser who sticks to the heels of the one he is chasing and catches him. Laban overtakes Jacob, Israel's fighters run the Benjaminites down, and the Philistines close in on Saul and his sons. The Greek word is never used against anyone.Gen 31:23Jdg 20:451Sa 31:22Sa 1:6
What clings in Hebrew is often unwanted. Plague, disease, a curse, and sin itself stick to a person and cannot be shaken off, and the psalmist refuses to let anything worthless stick to him. The Greek word describes a stay that someone chooses, so it is never used this way.Deu 28:212Ki 5:27Psa 101:3Jer 42:16
When the Hebrew word joins two people it can make a permanent tie of belonging, not just time spent together: a man is joined to his wife as one flesh, Ruth binds herself to Naomi and to Naomi's people, and a whole nation transfers its allegiance from David to another leader. The Greek word never carries that weight, and the stays it describes can simply end.Gen 2:24Rut 1:142Sa 20:2
What scholars say about prosmenō
The lexica agree on the range of προσμένω and divide it three ways. BDAG gives (1) to remain at a place, stay on (1 Tim 1:3;Acts 18:18), (2) to remain with someone, construed with the dative of person (Matt 15:32;Mark 8:2), and (3) to continue in something, remain faithful to it (Acts 11:23;Acts 13:43;1 Tim 5:5). LSJ documents the same spread across classical and Hellenistic usage and adds the frequent sense "wait for, await" a person or an outcome, while Moulton-Milligan cite the documentary papyri for the ordinary business use of waiting on someone; this is why the seven New Testament instances read as unremarkable Koine rather than as technical vocabulary. Hauck's TDNT treatment of μένω handles the prefixed forms only in passing and locates the theological weight of the group in the Johannine and Pauline use of the simplex, not in προσμένω. Two constructional points are noted in the commentaries. Luke varies between προσμένειν ἐν τῷ κυρίῳ in Acts 11:23 and the plain dative τῇ χάριτι τοῦ θεοῦ in Acts 13:43 with no discernible shift in sense (Barrett), and in 1 Tim 5:5 the verb governs the datives δεήσεσιν καὶ προσευχαῖς, yielding settled, habitual devotion rather than a single act (Marshall). The two Acts passages are also read as part of Luke's vocabulary for perseverance in the faith, alongside ἐμμένω τῇ πίστει in Acts 14:22, though the verb carries no such content of its own outside those contexts.
Sources
BDAG (Danker, ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), s.v. προσμένωlexicon
Liddell-Scott-Jones (LSJ), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. προσμένωlexicon
J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), s.v. προσμένωlexicon
F. Hauck, "μένω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 4:574-588theological-dictionary
C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, vol. 1: Commentary on Acts I-XIV (ICC; T&T Clark, 1994), on Acts 11:23 and 13:43commentary
I. H. Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; T&T Clark, 1999), on 1 Timothy 1:3 and 5:5commentary