to make a loud sound with the voice: to cry out, or (of a rooster) to crow
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its root this word is about the voice itself. It pictures a sound sent out loudly enough to be heard at a distance, whether that sound is a rooster's crow at daybreak or a person shouting across a crowd.
The two settings share one idea: a clear, carrying sound aimed at whoever can hear it. When a rooster does it, English calls it crowing. When a person does it, the same word becomes a loud cry or shout, often at a charged moment such as a last word spoken from the cross or a warning shouted to a jailer.
Nuances
1ato crow: the loud cry of a rooster, especially at dawn
to call someone to come: to summon, send for, or invite
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Here the raised voice has a target. Someone speaks up to bring another person over, whether that is a master sending for a servant, a crowd calling a blind man to Jesus, or a host inviting guests to a meal.
The emphasis stays on the voice doing the work. The word does not simply mean to fetch someone; it means to call them, so that the person comes because they were addressed out loud. That is why the same word covers summoning a servant, sending for a witness, and calling sheep that know the sound.
In this use the word is about what you call someone, not about bringing them near. To address a person as Teacher or Lord is to name them out loud with that title.
This use is rare and sits close to the ordinary word for naming or calling. It is kept separate because the focus falls on the spoken title a person is given rather than on any summons.
It is the desperate cry of someone in distress, begging for help with no guarantee of being heard: blind men, a drowning man, a tormented father.Mat 14:30Mat 20:30Mrk 9:24
It is the loud roar of a crowd shouting together, whether in praise or in fury.Mat 21:9Mat 27:23Act 19:34
It can be a raw, wordless shriek with no listener in view, such as a demon screaming or a man crying out among the tombs.Mrk 5:5Mrk 9:26Mat 27:50
βοάωto shout aloud, stressing sheer volume and urgency; this word centers on the voice calling out, whether loud or merely audible.
Calling one particular person over so that they come: Jesus calls the blind man, Martha calls Mary, Peter calls the believers in. The word names the person being called, and a response is expected.Mrk 10:49Jhn 11:28Act 9:41Mat 20:32
The rooster's crowing. This is the standard word for it in every account of Peter's denial, and the other word is never used that way.Mat 26:34Mrk 14:30Luk 22:60Jhn 13:38
Addressing someone by a name or a title: the disciples "call" Jesus Teacher and Lord, and the shepherd calls his own sheep by name.Jhn 13:13Jhn 10:3
Inviting guests to a meal, the everyday social sense of asking people to come.Luk 14:12
Both
Either word can carry a loud cry wrung out of someone at the point of death: Mark reports Jesus' cry from the cross with one, Luke reports it with the other, and both add "with a loud voice".Mrk 15:34Luk 23:46
Both are used for the shriek of an unclean spirit as it comes out of a person, again "with a loud voice", so on this kind of scream the two words are interchangeable.Act 8:7Mrk 1:26
Both can carry a cry for mercy aimed at someone thought able to grant it: the blind man on the roadside and the rich man calling out to Abraham use almost the same words, one with each verb.Luk 18:38Luk 16:24
The cry of a herald flung out into open country, with nobody named who is meant to answer it. All four Gospels use this word for Isaiah's "a voice of one crying in the wilderness", where the point is that the announcement is made aloud, not that someone is being called over.Mat 3:3Mrk 1:3Luk 3:4Jhn 1:23
The angry outcry of a crowd pressing charges in front of officials, where the shouting itself is how the accusation gets made.Act 17:6Act 25:24
A shout of sheer gladness that a person is told to break into, as when the childless woman is commanded to "break forth and cry aloud".Gal 4:27
A crying out kept up over time rather than one call: God's chosen ones cry to him "day and night" for justice, and a father's plea for his only son comes out as this kind of appeal.Luk 18:7Luk 9:38
It covers sound with no words in it at all. The standard way to say a rooster crowed is to use this verb of the bird itself.Mat 26:34Mrk 14:30Luk 22:60Jhn 13:38
It is the verb writers reach for when a voice is raised to a shout or a cry, often with the added phrase "with a loud voice": an unclean spirit shrieking as it leaves, Jesus crying out as he dies, Paul shouting into the dark of the prison, an angel calling across heaven.Mrk 1:26Luk 23:46Act 16:28Rev 14:18
It can mean "call" in the sense of giving someone a name or a title. The shepherd calls his own sheep by name, and Jesus notes that his disciples call him "Teacher" and "Lord".Jhn 10:3Jhn 13:13
It is used for sending for someone who is not there, with the message carried by other people. Jesus tells the bystanders to call the blind man, Martha slips away to fetch her sister, the authorities send for the healed man's parents, and a king orders his servants brought in.Mrk 10:49Jhn 11:28Jhn 9:18Luk 19:15
It stretches as far as inviting guests to a meal, where the sense is closer to "invite" than to raising your voice.Luk 14:12
Both
Both mean calling people over so that they come and hear what you are about to say. Jesus calls his disciples to him before choosing the twelve and calls the bent woman across to heal her, and with the other verb he calls the blind men over and calls the twelve to sit them down.Luk 6:13Luk 13:12Mat 20:32Mrk 9:35
With both, the call runs straight into the words that follow, so the calling and the speaking are told as one action: Jesus calls the woman and says "you are set free", and the rich man calls out and says "Father Abraham, have mercy".Luk 13:12Luk 16:24
It is the word for speaking to a crowd as a whole, the way a person addresses an assembly. Paul quiets the mob on the steps and speaks to them in their own language, and Pilate turns back to the gathered people to argue for releasing Jesus.Act 21:40Act 22:2Luk 23:20
It can describe one group calling across to another and waiting for an answer. In the parable of the children in the marketplace, one set of children shouts to their playmates and complains that nobody joined in.Mat 11:16Luk 7:32
Names the act of calling a particular person to come, summoning someone by name or gesture so that they approach.Mrk 10:49Jhn 11:28Jhn 1:48
Used for a rooster crowing, the sound a bird makes to mark a moment, where no human voice is in view at all.Mat 26:74Mrk 14:30Luk 22:60
Both
Both come together when someone cries out aloud: the calling word supplies the act of crying, and the voice word names the loud sound that is heard.Luk 23:46Act 16:28Mrk 1:26Rev 14:18
Both belong to the shepherd image, where the shepherd's voice is the sound the sheep know and his calling is how he leads each one out.Jhn 10:3Jhn 10:4
Names the thing that is heard rather than any act of speaking, including the divine voice that speaks from heaven.Mat 3:17Mrk 9:72Pe 1:17
Stretches beyond the human voice to any sound at all: the noise of wind, a trumpet, or a musical instrument.Jhn 3:81Co 14:7Rev 4:1
phōneō in the other biblical languages
קָרָאHebrew“to call: call to”the main Hebrew verb for calling out, summoning, and naming; it spans the same range from crying aloud to calling a person by name.
Stays close to its root meaning of producing a sound or raising the voice, so it covers a rooster crowing as readily as a person speaking out.Mat 26:34Luk 22:34
Often means to cry out loudly, a shout that carries rather than a quiet word.Luk 23:46Mrk 15:35
Both
Both mean to summon a particular person, calling someone by voice to come near.Gen 24:58Mrk 10:49
Carries the sense of giving something a name, which the Greek word does not: God names the day and the night, and people name their children and the places they mark.Gen 1:5Gen 3:20
Used for calling on the LORD in worship, invoking God by name in prayer and proclamation.Gen 4:26Gen 12:8
What scholars say about phōneō
φωνέω is a denominative verb built on φωνή, "voice, sound," and its range fans out from that base. The lexica group its uses in three: (1) to produce a loud sound, whether the crowing of a cock (a fixed usage in all four Passion narratives) or a human cry or shout; (2) to summon or send for a person, calling them to come; and (3) to address or name someone with a title (John 13:13). BDAG and LSJ organize the entry along these lines, and Louw-Nida likewise distinguishes the summoning domain from the sound-producing domain. Against the near-synonym καλέω, which is the general verb for calling, naming, and inviting, φωνέω keeps closer to the audible act of raising the voice; against κράζω and βοάω it names a directed call rather than an inarticulate scream or a shout of sheer volume.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. φωνέωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. φωνέωlexicon
O. Betz, 'φωνή, φωνέω,' in TDNT 9:278-309lexicon
Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. φωνέωlexicon