μόνον
mónon · G3440 · Greek · 67 occurrences
Meanings
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Used adverbially to restrict or limit the scope of an action, condition, or statement, meaning "only," "merely," or "alone" — indicating exclusivity or a single condition without addition
Examples1 Corinthians 15:19 If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied.
1 John 2:2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
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Used as a transitional or conjunctive particle introducing a qualification, exception, or contrastive condition, often translated "but," "however," or "only [do this]" — typically in imperatival or hortatory contexts where a caveat follows an assertion
ExamplesGalatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
Philippians 1:27 Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is removed.
How it’s used
Every occurrence, grouped by the words it is grammatically related to.
When two words share a role, as in “Paul and Barnabas said”, the verse appears under each, so a section’s counts can add up to more than the number of occurrences.
MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets, available at https://github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-greek/, licensed CC BY 4.0; MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets © 2022-2024 by Biblica, Inc., CC BY 4.0. Westminster Leningrad Codex (tanach.us). OpenScriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (hb.openscriptures.org), CC BY 4.0.
In the other Testament 2 words
- בַּד bad · H905 · linen, apart, besides
- בַּד (bad, H905) encompasses both the adverbial sense of exclusivity/solitude that overlaps with μόνον (mónon, G3440) (μόνον, "merely/only") and additional nominal senses ("branch," "staff," "part") absent from the Greek; the cross-linguistic equivalence holds specifically for the exclusivity/restriction semantic component shared across both lemmas.
- אַךְ ʼak · H389 · only, just, mere
- μόνον (mónon, G3440) and אַךְ (ʼak, H389) function as restrictive/limiting adverbs in their respective languages, both conveying the sense of 'only,' 'merely,' or 'but' to delimit scope or introduce qualification, making them natural translation equivalents across Greek and Hebrew.
Semantic domains 2 entries
- Only one, alone58.50
- Matthew 5:47 has Jesus ask, “if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles, do they not do the same?”
- Alone, all by oneself58.51
- Matthew 17:8 recounts that after the transfiguration, “raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.”
Word family 6 words
Words formed from the same root. They share a form, not always a meaning.
Sources
eRhema lexical overview, based on the UBS Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew and the UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (© United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Macula Hebrew and Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0); released under CC BY-SA 4.0
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