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Hebrew

To corrupt

אָלַחStrong’s H0444

alach (a-lach)

Appears in 3 verses of the Old Testament

In short

Alach is the Hebrew word usually translated “are corrupt” and “is corrupt”. It appears in 3 verses of the Old Testament.

“How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?”
Job 15:16 KJV
Meaning
  1. (Niphal) to be corrupt morally, tainted
How it's translated
  • they are corrupt 2
  • and is corrupt 1

Word-by-word English from the STEPBible tagged text.

Where it's used most
  • Psalms 2
  • Job 1

2 books in all.

Related words
Explore in Scripture
Hebrew dictionary

אָלַח alach · to corrupt

(Niphal) to be corrupt morally, tainted

From STEPBible’s Hebrew lexicon (based on Brown-Driver-Briggs).

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

How the English word “corrupt” was understood when the King James Version was still the common Bible of English readers.

CORRUPT, verb transitive

[Latin, to break.]

Literally, to break, separate or dissolve. Hence,

  1. To change from a sound to a putrid or putrescent state; to separate the component parts of a body, as by a natural process, which accompanied by a fetid smell.
  2. To vitiate or deprave; to change from good to bad.“Evil communications corrupt good manners” 1 Corinthians 15:33
  3. To waste, spoil or consume.“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt” Matthew 6:19
  4. To defile or pollute. Exodus 32:7
All definitions and other forms of “corrupt”
  1. To entice from good and allure to evil. 2 Corinthians 11:3
  2. To pervert; to break, disobey or make void. Malachi 2:3
  3. To pervert or vitiate integrity; to bribe; as, to corrupt a judge.
  4. To debase or render impure, by alterations or innovations; as, to corrupt language.
  5. To pervert; to falsify; to infect with errors; as, to corrupt the sacred text.

CORRUPT, verb intransitive

  1. To become putrid; to putrefy; to rot.
  2. To become vitiated; to lose purity.

CORRUPT, adjective

[Latin]

  1. Changed from a sound to a putrid state, as by natural decomposition.
  2. Spoiled; tainted; vitiated; unsound; as corrupt air, or bread.
  3. Depraved; vitiated; tainted with wickedness.“They are corrupt; they have done abominable works” Psalms 14:1“The earth was corrupt before God” Genesis 6:11
  4. Debased; rendered impure; changed to a worse state; as corrupt language.
  5. Not genuine; infected with errors or mistakes.

Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Verse references are checked against the KJV. Read the full entry.

Verses are from the King James Version. Word meanings come from the original Hebrew, not from any one translation.