ἐμπλοκή

From the study of 1 Peter 3:3

Range of meaning

An action noun from emplekō, "to weave in, entwine". It means interweaving or braiding, and in particular the braiding-up of hair into an arranged style. BDAG gives "braiding" and cites Strabo's description (17.3.7) of North Africans who make themselves attractive by braiding their hair and wearing gold ornaments.

Against the English

KJV and YLT say "plaiting", ESV and WEB "braiding", BSB "braided hair", NIV "elaborate hairstyles", NLT "fancy hairstyles". The NIV and NLT wording conveys the social point (display), while "braided hair" can sound to modern readers like any ordinary plait.

How it drifted

In English, "braids" now names ordinary, practical and often culturally rooted hairstyles. The Greek points to the work of building up an arranged style, which in Peter's world was the hallmark of the wealthy.

Used elsewhere in the period

Only here in the New Testament. The parallel 1 Tim 2:9 uses plegmata, "plaits". In the late first century, fashionable Roman women wore piled, curled, tiered styles, sometimes with added hairpieces, that took slaves hours to arrange; portrait busts of the Flavian period (the 70s–90s AD) show this. Pliny the Elder (Natural History 9.117) describes Lollia Paulina with emeralds and pearls woven through her hair, head, ears and neck. Pythagorean moral letters addressed to women, and Seneca's praise of his mother (To Helvia 16.3–4), treat elaborate hair and jewellery as the opposite of a modest wife.