Definition

a waste or amazement

Etymology

from H8074 (שָׁמֵם);

Where the KJV renders it

• astonishment
• desolate

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.