Word Summary
argos: inactive, idle
Original Word: ἀργόςTransliteration: argos
Phonetic Spelling: (ar-gos')
Part of Speech: Adjective
Short Definition: inactive, idle
Meaning: inactive, idle
Strong's Concordance
barren, idle, slow.
From a (as a negative particle) and ergon; inactive, i.e. Unemployed; (by implication) lazy, useless -- barren, idle, slow.
see GREEK a
see GREEK ergon
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
STRONGS NT 692: ἀργόςἀργός,
ἀργόν, and in later writings from
Aristotle, hist. anim. 10, 40 (vol. i., p. 627{a}, 15) on and consequently also in the N. T. with the feminine
ἀργῇ, which among the early Greeks
Epimenides alone is said to have used,
Titus 1:12; cf.
Lob. ad Phryn., p. 104f; id. Paralip., p. 455ff;
Winers Grammar, 68 (67) (cf. 24;
Buttmann, 25 (23)) (contracted from
ἀεργός which
Homer uses, from alpha privative and
ἔργον without work, without labor, doing nothing),
inactive, idle;
a. free from labor, at leisure (ἀργόν εἶναι, Herodotus 5, 6): Matthew 20:3, 6 (Rec.); 1 Timothy 5:13.
b. lazy, shunning the labor which one ought to perform (Homer, Iliad 9, 320 ὁ, τ' ἀεργός ἀνήρ, ὁ, τέ πολλά ἐοργως): πίστις, James 2:20 (L T Tr WH for R G νεκρά); γαστέρες ἀργαί i. e. idle gluttons, from Epimenides, Titus 1:12 (Nicet. ann. 7, 4, 135 d. εἰς ἀργᾷς γαστερας ὀχετηγησας); ἀργός καί ἄκαρπος εἰς τί, 2 Peter 1:8.
c. of things from which no profit is derived, although they can and ought to be productive; as of fields, trees, gold and silver, (cf. Grimm on Wis. 14:5; (Liddell and Scott, under the word I. 2)); unprofitable, ῤῆμα ἀργόν, by litotes equivalent to pernicious (see ἄκαρπος): Matthew 12:36. [SYNONYMS: ἀργός, βραδύς, νωθρός: ἀργός, idle, involving blameworthiness; βραδύς slow (tardy), having a purely temporal reference and no necessary bad sense; νωθρός sluggish, descriptive of constitutional qualities and suggestive of censure. Schmidt, chapter 49; Trench, § civ.]