generously; though why the A.V. uses the word at all is not clear, as there is no word in

the original Greek for it.

FRAY. This is a shortened form of the verb "affray" which in 1611 meant frighten or

to make afraid.  The word `afraid' is just the modern form of the past participle

"affrayed". In Deut. 28: 26 comes the warning--"thy carcase shall be meat unto all

the fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away"

that is, "frighten them away".  Likewise Jer. 7: 33.  In the vision of Zechariah,

four carpenters came to fray or terrify the four horns which had scattered Judah

(Zechariah 1: 18-21).

FRET.  This word occurs four times in the A.V. in the obsolete sense of eat into,

gnaw, decay. A fretting leprosy is referred to in Lev. 13: 51, 52; 14: 44 and "it is fret

inward" in 13: 55, that is leprous decay of the flesh. These are Tyndale's terms which

were accepted by the A.V. translators.

FROWARD--NESS.  This obsolete word is cognate with `from-ward", like the

phrase "to and fro" for "to and from". It is the opposite of `toward'. It had the meaning

of contrary, perverse, crooked or devious and 17 of the 24 occurrences are to be found in

When used as a verb this word refers to the breeding of cattle

(Lev.xix.19; Job 21: 10). The well-known phrase in Gal. 4: 24 "Mount Sinai, which

gendereth to bondage" means "which bears children for slavery", and in II Tim. 2: 23

we are warned against foolish questions which "gender strifes" or breed quarrels.

GHOST. Except in connection with the Holy Spirit, this old word only occurs in the

phrases, `give up the ghost' (16 times) and `yield up the ghost' (3 times). Both phrases

mean the same thing and represent a single Hebrew or Greek word meaning `to die'. The

word `ghost' in 1611 did not mean an apparition, but the spirit or immaterial part of a

person as distinct from his body and `ghostly' meant spiritual. The literature of this

period is full of references to church ministers being called ghostly advisers, ghostly

instructors, ghostly fathers, etc. Ghostly counsel was spiritual counsel. The word is now

quite obsolete in this sense. The Holy Ghost should now be rendered the Holy Spirit.

When a ghost in the modern sense is used in the N.T. the Greek has the word

phantasma not pneuma, spirit. When they saw the Lord Jesus walking on the water, the

disciples said, "it is spirit" (Mark 6: 49) according to the A.V.  But the word is

phantasma not pneuma and should be rendered, as in the modern versions, "it is a ghost".