a spot or stain: a blemish that mars something otherwise clean, used morally of the corruption that spoils a person or a community
This was an ordinary, everyday word in the Greek-speaking world. It named:
- the spot you notice on someone's cheek
- the stain on a linen shirt
- the fleck on a slab of marble
- a mark on the moon
It was not a religious or ceremonial term; it belonged to plain sensory life, and both New Testament writers who use it reach for exactly that vividness.
In the New Testament the word is always figurative, and its two appearances turn the same picture in slightly different directions. In one, the stain is what a spotless bride does not have: the church is presented perfect, without a single mark. In the other, corrupt people are themselves the stains, spoiling the fellowship they sit down to share. In both cases the force is moral: a blemish is something that has no business being there, that ruins what should be clean, and that must be washed away.
Because the word came from common life rather than from Israel's worship, the New Testament writers often set a stronger, ceremonial word for a sacrificial defect (μῶμος) right beside it (in Ephesians the bride is also called flawless, and in Second Peter the same people are called both spots and defects). The everyday image lets an ordinary reader feel the corruption on their own skin and clothing, while the paired ceremonial word supplies the weight of what it means to be unfit to stand before God.