Definition

{properly, interrogative what? (including how? why? when?); but also exclamation, what! (including how!), or indefinitely what}

Etymology

(Aramaic) corresponding to H4100 (מָה)

Where the KJV renders it

• how great (mighty)
• that which
• what(-soever)
• why

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.