Exploring the Meaning of Salmone in Greek

Σαλμώνη (Salmone) is a place name, occurring in the narrative of a sea voyage in Acts. It appears as a geographic point of reference used to describe a ship’s course along the coast of Crete.

Root and Related Words

Salmone is related to the place name Σαλαμίς (Slamis), “Salamis” (Strong’s G4529).

Occurrences

“When we had sailed slowly many days, and had come with difficulty opposite Cnidus, the wind not allowing us further, we sailed under the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.” (Acts 27:7)

Here Salmone functions as a precise landmark within a chain of navigational descriptions. The verse is shaped by constraints: the voyage is “slowly,” it comes “with difficulty,” and then turns because “the wind [was] not allowing us further.” In that setting, Salmone is not introduced for its own sake but as a fixed point that helps locate the ship’s altered route: having been prevented from proceeding as intended, the travelers “sailed under the lee of Crete,” and the narrator pins that sheltered course to a specific stretch of coastline by adding “opposite Salmone.”

The phrase “under the lee” implies the vessel is taking advantage of the island’s protection from wind; Salmone identifies where along Crete that protection was sought. The term “opposite” coordinates the ship’s position relative to land, presenting Salmone as something visible or known enough to be used in a directional description. Thus the word contributes concreteness and immediacy to the travel narrative: readers are not merely told that the ship changed course, but are given a spatial reference point that marks the transition from struggling toward Cnidus to hugging Crete’s shelter.

Sense and Usage

As a proper noun naming a location, Salmone serves the narrative by anchoring movement in real space. In Acts 27:7 it appears within a sequence of location markers (“opposite Cnidus,” then “under the lee of Crete,” then “opposite Salmone”), and its role is to narrow the description from broad region (Crete) to a particular point relative to which the ship is sailing. The effect is documentary in tone: the voyage is framed as an observed journey with identifiable waypoints, and Salmone is one of those waypoints.

Because the immediate context emphasizes the wind’s resistance (“not allowing us further”), Salmone is also part of how the text narrates forced navigation rather than leisurely travel. The ship’s progress is not plotted by preference but by necessity. Mentioning Salmone at the moment the ship seeks shelter under Crete’s lee helps the reader follow the logic of the route: the travelers are not drifting aimlessly; they are choosing a workable line of travel along the island, and Salmone names the coastal area that corresponds to that decision.

Within this verse, Salmone is used with the prepositional idea “opposite,” which sets it in relation to the ship’s position at sea rather than as a destination entered or visited. The word therefore functions as a reference point for orientation: a way to say where the ship is while it remains offshore. In that way it belongs to the language of travelogues—place names selected not because they are central characters in the story, but because they allow the reader to trace the vessel’s path through changing conditions.

Imagery

The single mention of Salmone carries the imagery of coastal navigation under pressure: a ship pressed by contrary wind, turning toward the shelter of an island’s lee, and passing along a known point on the shoreline. In Acts 27:7, “opposite Salmone” evokes the moment when open-water plans give way to close-coast sailing, with the land’s contours—named by specific places—becoming the means of progress when the wind will not cooperate.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).