ἀγρεύω

From the study of Mark 12:13

Range of meaning

To hunt or catch wild game or fish; to take as prey. By extension, to capture a person by trickery or lure. The related noun agra means a hunt or a catch, and Luke uses it of a haul of fish (Luke 5:4, 9).

Against the English

BSB, KJV and NIV say "catch"; WEB, ESV and NASB say "trap"; YLT says "ensnare". All are fair. "Catch" keeps the broad hunting word but can sound like catching someone out in a small slip. "Trap" and "ensnare" keep the danger but narrow the picture to one device, when the Greek does not specify a snare.

How it drifted

The word itself has not changed. The English idiom "catch someone in their words" has become mild, suggesting embarrassment or a debating point, and so the hunting picture and the danger fade.

Used elsewhere in the period

Liddell-Scott-Jones lists hunting and fishing uses in Greek literature. The Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) uses it literally and in figures of speech: hunters setting up for prey (Hosea 5:2), a sufferer hunted like a lion (Job 10:16), lawless deeds that catch a man (Proverbs 5:22), and the seductress who hunts a man's life (Proverbs 6:25-26). In the New Testament it occurs only here. Matthew's parallel uses a different word, pagideuō, "to snare" (Matthew 22:15).