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Old & New Testament Greek Lexical Dictionary Greek Lexicon
Strong's #945 - βαττολογέω
- Thayer
- Strong
- Mounce
- to stammer
- to repeat the same things over and over, to use many idle words, to babble, prate. Some suppose the word derived from Battus, a king of Cyrene, who is said to have stuttered; others from Battus, an author of tedious and wordy poems.
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this Strong's Number
βαττο-λογέω,
= βατταρίζω, speak stammeringly, say the same thing over and over again, Matthew 6:7, Simp. in Epict. p.91D.
βαττολογέω (T WH βατταλογέω (with א B, see WH's Appendix, p. 152)), βαττολόγω: 1 aorist subjunctive βαττολογήσω;
a. to stammer, and, since stammerers are accustomed to repeat the same sounds,
b. to repeat the same things over and over, to use many and idle words, to babble, prate; so Matthew 6:7, where it is explained by ἐν τῇ πολυλογία, (Vulg. multum loqui; (A. V. to use vain repetitions)); cf. Tholuck at the passage Some suppose the word to be derived from Battus, a king of Cyrene, who is said to have stuttered (Herodotus 4, 155); others from Battus, an author of tedious and wordy poems; but comparing βατταρίζειν, which has the same meaning, and βάρβαρος (which see), it seems fax more probable that the word is onomatopoetic. (Simplicius, in Epictetus (ench. 30 at the end), p. 340, Schweigh edition.)
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*† βατταλογέω , -ῶ
(Rec. βαττολ -, D, βλαττ - = βατταρίζω , prob. onomatop.; v. MM, s v; DCG, ii, 499b, 790 a);
to stammer, repeat idly: Matthew 6:7 (Cremer, 765).†
Copyright © 1922 by G. Abbott-Smith, D.D., D.C.L.. T & T Clarke, London.
In D this word is βλαττολογέω , the form of which suggests an approximation towards the Latin blatero—[query cf. provincial English blether, with same meaning, both starting from *mlatero]. The Latin text (d) has not the word, so that if Latin influence is recognizable here it must lie somewhere in the complex history of the Bezan text itself. Βαττολογέω may be by haplology for βατταλολογέω , in which some connexion may be suspected with Βάτταλος on the one side, the nickname of Demosthenes, and Aramaic battâl (";leer, nichtig,"; says Wellhausen on Matthew 6:7) on the other. Whether Greek or Aramaic, or neither, is the borrower, we must not stay to ask. If the great orator was thus nicknamed because of the torrent of words at his command, which made envious rivals call him ";the gabbler, it will fit his case better than the highly improbable ";stammering"; connexion, and will suit the ἐν τη πολυλογίᾳ by which the verb is explained in Matthew 6:7. (See Holden on Plutarch’s Demosthenes, ch. iv.)
Copyright © 1914, 1929, 1930 by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan. Hodder and Stoughton, London.
Derivative Copyright © 2015 by Allan Loder.
