Definition

properly, an age; by extension, perpetuity (also past); by implication, the world; specially (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future)

Etymology

from the same as G104 (ἀεί);

Where the KJV renders it

• age
• course
• eternal
• (for) ever(-more)
• (n-)ever
• (beginning of the
• while the) world (began
• without end)

Every distinct English word the King James Version uses to translate this Greek term. The variety shows what readers in English receive across many different surface words — the same underlying word, scattered across the English Bible under different names.

What the first audience heard

A deep-dive treatment of this word is in the works. The featured chapter above carries the long form of what this word meant to its first audience.