γλεῦκος

From the study of Acts 2:13

Range of meaning

Sweet wine. In Greek writers generally it means grape must (freshly pressed juice, often already starting to ferment) or wine kept deliberately sweet. The word is built on glykys, "sweet". It describes taste and type of wine, not necessarily newness. It appears only here in the New Testament.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and BSB say "new wine", which suggests this season's freshly made vintage. YLT and NASB say "sweet wine", which is closer to the word itself. NIV and NLT drop the kind of wine and just say "too much wine" or "drunk".

How it drifted

Latin musta ("must", in the Vulgate's musto) and the English tradition from Tyndale on rendered it "new wine". Modern readers then hear either "freshly pressed grape juice", sometimes taken to be non-alcoholic, or the Christian metaphor of "new wine" from Jesus' wineskins saying. That saying uses a different Greek phrase, oinos neos.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament, Job 32:19 compares Elihu's pent-up words to a wineskin of fermenting gleukos ready to burst, which shows the word could name wine that was actively fermenting. Greek medical and agricultural writers use it for must and sweet wines. Roman agricultural writers such as Columella and Pliny describe ways to keep must sweet for months. The Vulgate translates it musto.