Definition

alive; hence, raw (flesh); fresh (plant, water, year), strong; also (as noun, especially in the feminine singular and masculine plural) life (or living thing), whether literally or figuratively

Etymology

from H2421 (חָיָה);

Where the KJV renders it

• age
• alive
• appetite
• (wild) beast
• company
• congregation
• life(-time)
• live(-ly)
• living (creature
• thing)
• maintenance
• merry
• multitude
• (be) old
• quick
• raw
• running
• springing
• troop

Every distinct English word the King James Version uses to translate this Hebrew 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.