Greek word · G3054
λογομαχέω
logomacheō
to quarrel
'To fight about words'. A compound of logos (word, statement, argument) and machomai (to fight). BDAG gives 'dispute about words, split hairs'. It suggests contentious argument over terms, formulations or verbal technicalities, where winning the exchange replaces getting at the truth.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament.
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of 2 Timothy 2:14
- Range of meaning
'To fight about words'. A compound of logos (word, statement, argument) and machomai (to fight). BDAG gives 'dispute about words, split hairs'. It suggests contentious argument over terms, formulations or verbal technicalities, where winning the exchange replaces getting at the truth.
- Against the English
KJV 'strive about words' keeps the picture of combat. 'Quarrel about words' (ESV, BSB) and 'wrangle' (NASB) are accurate. The danger is that modern readers take 'words' to mean any careful attention to wording or doctrine. The Greek compound means fighting: the fault lies in the contest and its fruitlessness, not in caring about what words mean.
- How it drifted
Not so much a drift of the word as a stretching of the command. The phrase gets used to dismiss any disagreement about meaning as mere 'semantics'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The verb appears only here in the New Testament. The related noun logomachia occurs in 1 Tim 6:4, where the false teacher has 'a morbid craving for controversies and word-battles' that produce 'envy, strife, slanders, evil suspicions'. Both words are rare in Greek before these letters. They fit a wider Greco-Roman criticism of eristic (debate-for-victory) sophistry, which moralists such as Philo and Epictetus attacked as showy and empty.
Similar words
Where it appears
2 Timothy · 1
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2 Timothy 2:14 λογομαχεῖν to quarrel about words
Remind the believers of these things, charging them before God to avoid quarreling over words, which succeeds only in leading the listeners to ruin.
Here: Literally 'to word-battle' (logos 'word' + machē 'battle'). It describes combative debate that fixes on terms, slogans and clever points and treats argument as a contest to win. In this letter it points to the circle of disputes stirred up by the false teachers (vv. 16–18).
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.