The verb φυω (phuo) describes a sprouting and growing up of plants primarily and secondarily of people. It stems from the same Proto-Indo-European root "bheu-" from which English gets the important verbs to be, to bear and to build. The Greek verb occurs in a mere two contexts in the New Testament (Luke 8:6 and 8:8, and Hebrews 12:15) but gives rise to a small cluster of important derivatives:

The verb φυσαω (phusao) means to produce wind, and stems from noun φυσα (phusa), which described a bellows or any bladder or pouch that can produce a jet of air. And, we're happy to report, in the Classics this noun could also describe the common fart, or the signature joyful sound of one (which was often deployed in Greek and European comedy routines). The verb βδεω (bdeo) means to fart in the negative sense of producing an offensive smell. The word for naturally, not artificially of bodily produced wind is ανεμος (anemos).

It's not clear where this word comes from but since bellows are essential elements of ovens and furnaces, from which come bread, bricks and metal, it is not unthinkable that they were named after the productivity they facilitated and hence from the same PIE root "bheu-" as the above. Any Greek could certainly be forgiven to think that our verb φυσαω (phusao), to make wind, had something to do with φυσις (phusis), which describes naturally produced things. A verb derived from this latter noun (not used in the New Testament) is indeed identical to the verb φυσιοω (phusioo; see next) and describes how some trait or skill becomes deeply engrained like a second nature.

And because bellows were probably preceded by fans, it's also not unthinkable that the emergence of our word was helped along by proximity to the Hebrew verb פסס (pasas), to spread out, which in turn puts it in proximity of the verb ψαω (psao), to touch lightly, to rub, polish or wipe.

The Hebrew word for bellows is מפח (mappuah), from the verb נפח (napah), to blow forcefully, in turn from verb פוח (puah), to exhale.

Our verb φυσαω (phusao), to make wind, is not used independently in the New Testament but from it come:

The verb φλυω (pluo) means to bubble up, burst out or boil over, but is mostly used to describe people who are bursting out with words and are boiling over with prattle and stories, and this mostly because these people don't have the discipline to contain their emotions, or enough mastery of language to properly channel their verbal expressions.

Our verb is not related to our English verb "to flow" but rather stems from PIE root "belh-", to swell up, either physically or sound-wise. From this same root come English noise-words like bell and bellow, but also the Dutch verb "bulderen", to roar, and the Russian verb "blevat", to vomit.

Note the similarity with the name Baal, of the Semitic storm deity, whose name derives from the verb בעל (ba'al), to own, control or exercise dominion over. This similarity is probably accidental, but see our article on the many Hebrew roots of Greek. Also probably accidental is the similarity between the Dutch bulderen and the "bilder-" part of the name Bilderberg, which instead relates to the English verb to build and is an old Germanic word for farm (which is, admittedly, a noisy place on an otherwise quiet mountain).

Our verb φλυω (pluo) is not used independently in the New Testament, but from it derive:

The verb πρισσω (prisso), a.k.a. πριττω (pritto) means to bristle, to have one's hair stand on end (in Dutch: de haren rijzen te berge, i.e. the hair rise mountain-ward, or mountain-wise, in a heap). It's unclear where this word comes from but there's also a possibly/probably related noun φριξ (phrix), to shiver, which brings to mind the unrelated noun θριξ (thrix), hair, which in Hebrew is שער (se'ir), which comes from a verb that has to do with being horrified or very afraid (hence the name Seir, Mount Fear, the mountain of Edom), which is rather striking since from this same verb derives the Hebrew word for goat, namely שער (sa'ir), which in Greek is τραγος (tragos), billy goat, hence our word "tragedy" (literally "ode to goat", or song of fear and horror), whose female, the she-goat, is called αιξ (aix).

Our verb πρισσω (prisso) is clearly complicated, but it may ultimately derive from the same PIE root "belh-", to swell up, as the verb φλυω (pluo), to bubble up, which we discuss above. In the Greek classics, our verb appears to denote a being uneven or rough (of terrain), and came to denote any sort of crest (on rocks) or cam (on helmets), even hands raised in order to vote "yea" (contrasting lowered hands that indicated "nay"). But mostly our verb became used to describe hair on end, often of the manes of horses but also of the feathers of birds or foliage of trees.

It seems that the rather curious English expression of hair standing on end fails to relay what our verb meant in Greek, and may even have originated in a jocular interpretation by Greek learners (the way students of English have endless fun with expressions such as "catching a bus" or "lifting a shop"). Human hair doesn't move on its own, and our verb does not express what hair does. It rather describes the action of becoming uneven or unbalanced, thrown out of one's equilibrium, comfort zone or composure — and note that the word for organized human world-order, namely κοσμος (kosmos), looks suspiciously similar to the word κομη (kome), hair.

When in the classics, our verb does not refer to physical unevenness, it speaks of effects of cold (to shiver) or fear (to shudder), and on occasion of awe (to be thrilled) or joy (to jump about). When a person sports long hair, such a reaction would surely make their hair move, but that along with the rest of the person's body, and not mountain-ward (as in straight up), and neither would one's hat fly upward (as Hollywood showed in early comedy films).

Instead, our verb describes an increase in social entropy: more disagreement, more chaos, more individual motion, and a subsequent decrease in social harmony and agreement. The familiar name Beelzebub means Lord (בעל, ba'al) of the Flies, which is a joke name since flies don't acknowledge lordship or authority (other than their own: the lord of any fly is the fly itself). Flies are signified for going their own way, regardless of anyone else's ways or intentions, and hence for being perfectly antisocial. Their proverbial counterpart is the bee (דברה, debora), because bees have society: they have a communal house, nurse their offspring, help flowers reproduce, produce honey, and have a language. Flies have none of those things, because such bee-things require submission to social standards and codes.

This is also precisely what sets humans apart from animals, not simply and only language but a broader understanding of and adherence to common social standards and codes. Bees have ελευθερια (eleutheria), or freedom-by-law. Flies don't. Their antisocialness may seem frolic and free, but freedom-from-law is quite the opposite and equals bondage and restriction. People who have language have freedom of speech. People who are mute live in bondage, and have no freedom of speech. If freedom is life, then bondage is death (Ephesians 2:1). The former results from lawfulness; the latter from lawlessness.

The difference between a living thing and a dead thing is that when energy hits a dead thing (and inanimate object), then the individual molecules of that thing will increase their motion relative to their neighbors, and bounce and rattle about until the thing either melts or explodes, whereas when energy hits a living thing, then the molecules of that living thing will work together with their neighbors to capture that energy and store it as a chemical equivalent (i.e. honey). Living things don't get warmer and more chaotic but simply produce more of whatever they're good at producing.

When God first created Adam, he took the available dust of the earth, and gathered that dust into a viable composition, and then released into that composition his breath, so that Adam became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Entirely likewise (and this is called self-similarity), God said that Abraham's seed would be like that dust of the earth (Genesis 13:16, and see Galatians 3:7), and gathered that "dust" into a viable composition (Acts 2:5) and released into that composition his spirit, so that the church became a living thing, and became as unlike any other human organization as a stone is unlike a squirrel.

When the name of Jesus sounds, the elements of any dead thing start to bounce in each their own heat and passion, whereas the elements of a living thing start to make more technology, more science, and heal more blind people, and more lame people, create more wealth and raise more dead. The former will ultimately disintegrate. The latter will live forever.

Here at Abarim Publications we don't know either, of course, but if we were to guess we would guess that our Greek verb πρισσω (prisso), to shudder, ultimately stems from the Hebrew verb פרס (paras), to divide, and hence relates to πρεθω (pretho), to aspire or spread a fire.

Our verb πρισσω (prisso) appears in the New Testament in James 2:19 only.