Dictionaries :: Jesting

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Jesting:

jest'-ing: Used from Tyndale down as the translation of eutrapelia (Eph 5:4). Aristotle uses the original in his Ethics iv.14 as an equivalent of "quick-witted," from its root meaning "something easily turned," adding that, since the majority of people love excessive jesting, the word is apt to be degraded. This is the case here, where it clearly has a flavor of the coarse or licentious.

Nave's Topical Bible

Jesting: Foolish

Forbidden,

Eph 5:4.

See Mat 12:36.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Jesting:

properly denotes "wit, facetiousness, versatility" (lit., "easily turning," from eu, "well," trepo, "to turn"). It was used in the literal sense to describe the quick movements of apes and persons. Pericles speaks of the Athenians of his day (430 B.C.) as distinguished by a happy and gracious "flexibility." In the next century Aristotle uses it of "versatility" in the give and take of social intercourse, quick repartee. In the sixth century, B.C., the poet Pindar speaks of one Jason as never using a word of "vain lightness," a meaning deteriorated, and it came to denote "coarse jesting, ribaldry," as in Eph 5:4, where it follows morologia, "foolish talking."