Dishonour
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Ἀτιμία denotes dishonor, disgrace, or common use, but Paul's rhetoric varies with context. In 1 Corinthians 11:14, the term appears within a culturally and theologically complex discussion of head coverings, hair, honor, and gathered worship.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀτιμία (G819) · Open the biblical lexicon
Ἀτιμία denotes dishonor, disgrace, or common use, but Paul's rhetoric varies with context. In 1 Corinthians 11:14, the term appears within a culturally and theologically complex discussion of head coverings, hair, honor, and gathered worship.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include dishonor (2), [my] shame (1), a disgrace (1), common [use] (1), common use (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 1:26. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (2), 2 Corinthians (2), Romans (2), 2 Timothy (1).
Ἀτιμία denotes dishonor, disgrace, or common use, but Paul's rhetoric varies with context. In 1 Corinthians 11:14, the term appears within a culturally and theologically complex discussion of head coverings, hair, honor, and gathered worship. In 2 Corinthians 11:21, Paul speaks ironically “to his shame” while dismantling the domineering standards of the so-called super-apostles.
In 2 Timothy 2:20, vessels for honorable and common use illustrate the need to cleanse oneself from corrupting influence and become useful to the Master. The noun does not authorize public shaming or prove that every cultural honor code is timeless. Paul repeatedly redirects honor toward faithfulness to Christ, holy usefulness, and the paradoxical glory of apostolic weakness.
Paul uses ἀτιμία for disgrace, loss of honor, or common use within arguments about worship, apostolic weakness, and holy usefulness. Each context reorders human honor under Christ.
Doesn’t nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him,
The language of disgrace belongs to Paul's argument about sexual distinction, customary signs, and gathered worship; the noun alone cannot settle every question about hair or culture.
To my shame I concede that we were too weak for that! Speaking as a fool, however, I can match what anyone else dares to boast about.
Paul's ironic concession exposes the Corinthians' tolerance of abusive boasting and prepares his paradoxical boast in weakness.
A large house contains not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some indeed are for honorable use, but others are for common use.
The house-vessel image distinguishes honorable and common use in order to call servants away from wickedness and toward usefulness for every good work.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. dishonour
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
disgrace, dishonor
Read versedisgrace, dishonor
Read versedisgrace, dishonor
Read versedisgrace, dishonor
Read versedisgrace, dishonor
Read versedisgrace, dishonor
Read versedisgrace, dishonor
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
ἀτιμία is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Honor and dishonor are powerful social forces, which makes ἀτιμία easy to misuse. First Corinthians 11 requires patient attention to creation, custom, gender distinction, and gathered worship; the lexical label “disgrace” cannot by itself determine which cultural expressions are permanent. Second Corinthians 11 turns shame language against triumphal leadership, as Paul refuses the domineering boast and speaks as a weak apostle of the crucified Christ.
Second Timothy 2 redirects the issue toward usefulness: cleansing oneself from wickedness prepares a servant for honorable work in the Master's house. Churches should therefore resist humiliation as a method of control. Gospel honor is received and pursued under Christ, expressed in holiness, truthful service, and care for the body. Faithful ministry may be despised by prevailing standards, while impressive religious power may prove deeply dishonorable before God.
1Cor.11.14
Ἀτιμία combines the privative prefix with τιμή, honor or value. It may denote disgrace, lack of honor, or a use considered common rather than honored. Social evaluation is present, but Paul's argument decides whether he adopts, critiques, or redirects that evaluation.
The Lord repeatedly overturns human rankings, humbling the proud and honoring faithful servants. The suffering Servant is despised yet chosen for God's saving work. In Christ, the church learns to value holiness and service above domination, display, and public acclaim.