Exploring the Meaning of Thelus in Greek

θῆλυς speaks of what is “female,” a term used in Gospel sayings about creation and in Pauline discussions of human sexual relations and unity in Christ. It appears in statements that pair it with “male” and in contexts that refer to women and the woman in contrast to men.

Root and Related Words

Strong’s connects θῆλυς with the verb thelazō (θηλάζω), “to suckle,” presenting the adjective as belonging to the same word-family.

Occurrences

“He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female,” (Matthew 19:4)

Here θῆλυς functions within a paired expression—“male and female”—embedded in an appeal to the Creator’s act “from the beginning.” The word identifies one of the two sexes within the created order the speaker cites, setting “female” alongside “male” as an original, deliberate distinction made by God. In this scene, the term is not introduced as an isolated descriptor of an individual but as part of a foundational binary framed as something to be “read” and recognized in Scripture.

“But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.” (Mark 10:6)

This occurrence repeats the same pairing, placing θῆλυς within a concise claim about what God did “from the beginning of the creation.” The word contributes to the statement’s structure: it completes the twofold description of humanity as created, again in direct correlation with “male.” The setting is argumentative and explanatory; “female” is not incidental detail but one half of a created pair that anchors the larger point being made in the surrounding discussion.

“For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature.” (Romans 1:26)

Although the English clause speaks of “their women,” the concept of the female sex is central: the sentence singles out women and describes a shift “the natural function” to something “against nature.” In this context, “female” is tied to sexual conduct and to the idea of a “natural function,” with the word’s force lying in the identification of women as the subject of the change described. The passage places this within a larger account of divine judgment—“God gave them up”—so the reference to women is not merely demographic but part of a moral diagnosis in which sexual behavior is treated as a symptom of “vile passions.”

“Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.” (Romans 1:27)

In the immediate continuation, θῆλυς stands behind “the woman,” whose “natural function” is contrasted with male-to-male desire and action. The word contributes by marking the female counterpart that is being abandoned—“leaving the natural function of the woman”—so that the description of men’s conduct is set against the expected orientation toward the female. The term therefore participates in a relational contrast: men are described in relation to what belongs to woman, and the resulting behavior is characterized as “inappropriate,” culminating in “the due penalty of their error.”

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Here θῆλυς appears once more in the familiar pairing, “male nor female,” but now within a series of “neither…nor…” statements that negate social and ethnic divisions in the sphere defined by being “in Christ Jesus.” The word contributes to the scope of the claim: sex-based distinction (“male…female”) is placed alongside other major categories (“Jew…Greek,” “slave…free man”) as something that does not fracture the unity of those who are “all one.” In this verse, “female” remains a real human category, yet it is invoked to underline shared status and belonging rather than to emphasize difference.

Sense and Usage

Across these five passages, θῆλυς is consistently anchored to sex distinction and is most often framed in direct parallel with “male.” In the Gospel sayings (Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6), “female” belongs to a creation-language register: it is part of an origin statement—“from the beginning”—that treats the category as established by God’s making. The rhetorical effect is to present “female” as a basic, given feature of humanity rather than a negotiable label; it functions as a created counterpart in a fixed pair.

Romans 1:26–27 places “female” into the language of sexual function. The two verses work as a tight unit: the first speaks of “their women” changing “the natural function,” and the second describes men leaving “the natural function of the woman.” In both, the female category is not abstracted from embodied life; it is invoked in relation to what is described as “natural,” and it provides the contrasting term needed for Paul’s depiction of the behaviors he calls “against nature” and “inappropriate.” The word’s contribution is therefore relational and contrastive: “female/woman” supplies the reference point from which the described departures are measured.

Galatians 3:28 uses the same sex pair but with a different argumentative purpose. Rather than grounding an appeal to beginnings or describing a deviation from “natural function,” the verse deploys “male…female” to stress the comprehensive reach of unity “in Christ Jesus.” The pairing is included precisely because it is one of the most basic human differentiations; mentioning it strengthens the claim that unity extends across boundaries that ordinarily organize life and status. In this setting, “female” serves the logic of inclusion: it is named so that it can be explicitly encompassed within the “all one” statement.

Taken together, the passages show θῆλυς operating in two main discourse contexts: (1) creation-based assertions that present “female” as part of humanity’s original constitution, and (2) ethical-theological reasoning about sexual conduct and communal identity, where the term marks the female as a real category referenced either as the counterpart in sexual relations (Romans) or as a distinction that does not divide those united in Christ (Galatians). In each case, “female” does its work by standing in clear relation to “male,” whether the point being made is difference, departure, or unity across difference.

Imagery

The word’s imagery in these verses is plain and concrete: “female” appears as one side of a foundational human pairing—“male and female”—and, in Romans, as the embodied referent in talk of “natural function.” Galatians retains the same basic pairing but shifts the picture from origins or function to a gathered people described as “all one in Christ Jesus,” where “male…female” is named to show that unity can include those distinctions without being fractured by them.

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).