What is a synonym for 'hail'?

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There seems to be other uses in the bible. For instance it is used to mock Jesus as a king of the Jews.

“And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, G5463 King of the Jews!”
(Mt 27:29)

“And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. G5463 And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.”
(Mt 28:9)

“And began to salute him, Hail, G5463 King of the Jews!”
(Mk 15:8)
The “Hail, King of the Jews” is a mockery, but a mockery using an actual royal greeting. So Hail is indeed appropriate here. Although used mockingly, it is used in its proper sense.

Matthew 28:9 does literally say “chairete!” (chaire, plural), lit. Hail (y’all). It’s used in its looser form of greeting, i.e. well-wishing, but in an extended sense, it also exalts the apostles too.
 
The risen Jesus said the same greeting, “Hail,” to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary whom he met coming from his tomb. There is no reason to believe that these women were of high status or position.
No, Jesus did not say “chaire” to Mary Magdalene or to the women.
 
Yo Mary has a certain ring to it. 😃
“Hail Mary, what’s up?” (Sister Act reference right there)

Just a little about the English word ‘hail’: it’s originally a variant of hale ‎(‘health’ or ‘safety’), and is related to the word ‘heal’ and ‘whole’ (as in, ‘make him whole’). So ‘hail’ in its original sense is a greeting that wishes ‘health’ to the addressee.

You can see it in the word wassail: it’s from an Old English phrase was hál (wæs hæl) - and its Old Norse version ves heill - ‘be hale’. (If you’re familiar with The Lord of the Rings, you might have heard that phrase Westu Théoden hál ‘Be thou hale, Théoden’.) And also in another Old English greeting phrase meaning the same thing, such as beo gesund ‘be sound’ (gesund is cognate to the German gesundheit ‘soundness’/‘health’, and is the ‘sound’ of ‘safe and sound’).

As for ‘hello’, it’s actually from another type of greeting expression: Old English ēalā (pretty much an all-purpose type of interjection: ‘lo!’, ‘oh!’, ‘alas!’, ‘hey!’), a combination of ēa (the ancestor of ‘hey’ ;)) and the exclamation .
 
No, Jesus did not say “chaire” to Mary Magdalene or to the women.
καὶ ἰδοὺ Ἰησοῦς ὑπήντησεν αὐταῖς λέγων· Χαίρετε. αἱ δὲ προσελθοῦσαι ἐκράτησαν αὐτοῦ τοὺς πόδας καὶ προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ.

Kai idou, Iēsous ypēntēsen autēs legōn: Chairete. Ai de proselthousai ekratēsan autou tous podas kai prosekynesan autō. “And behold, Jesus met them saying: ‘Hail/Greetings.’ And they having come near took hold of his feet and bowed to/worshiped him.” (Matthew 28:9)
 
In the Trinitarian Bible Society’s NT in Hebrew they use “Shalom!” every time, whether it’s the angel Gabriel addressing Mary in Luke 1:28, or Judas saying “Greetings, Rabbi!” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:49), or the risen Jesus meeting the women in Matt. 28:9.
 
καὶ ἰδοὺ Ἰησοῦς ὑπήντησεν αὐταῖς λέγων· Χαίρετε. αἱ δὲ προσελθοῦσαι ἐκράτησαν αὐτοῦ τοὺς πόδας καὶ προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ.

Kai idou, Iēsous ypēntēsen autēs legōn: Chairete. Ai de proselthousai ekratēsan autou tous podas kai prosekynesan autō. “And behold, Jesus met them saying: ‘Hail/Greetings.’ And they having come near took hold of his feet and bowed to/worshiped him.” (Matthew 28:9)
I stand corrected. I missed the context.
 
The “Hail, King of the Jews” is a mockery, but a mockery using an actual royal greeting. So Hail is indeed appropriate here. Although used mockingly, it is used in its proper sense.
I think you are right here. It doesn’t make sense that they would be saying rejoice or be glad in this context to mock him. But it is more a salute to a king. Or mock hommage.
 
Notice the Dictionary INCORRECTLY states that the origins of “AVE” are from the 13th Century, this is absurd as it is recorded as matter of record that it was the salutation used in Roman times even before the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Looking at the entry you quoted, I believe the dictionary is tracing the first recorded use of “ave” as an English word to the 13th century. No lexicographer would be ill-informed enough to think that the Latin ave originated several centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, but it seems there was a period in which “ave” was adopted as a Middle English word.

It’s like tracing, say, the first recorded use of “tortilla” or “forte” in a normal English sentence. That says nothing about how old the words are in their original languages, just when they were adopted into English.

Usagi
 
I stand corrected. I missed the context.
Me too. I thought he was talking to his disciples. But is Jesus using hail the same way as the angel Gabriel did or during the mocking of Jesus? It doesn’t seem appropriate that Jesus would be acclaiming or paying homage to the women. And then the women worship him.
 
I think you are right here. It doesn’t make sense that they would be saying rejoice or be glad in this context to mock him. But it is more a salute to a king. Or mock hommage.
The verb chairo (χαιρω) has several different meanings. It occurs 74 times in the NT, according to the Bible Hub online concordance. As you can see (link below), it’s usually translated as “rejoice” or “be glad”. In the sense of “to greet”, or as a form of greeting, it appears about a dozen times only, or roughly one-sixth of the total number of occurrences.

biblehub.com/greek/strongs_5463.htm
 
Me too. I thought he was talking to his disciples. But is Jesus using hail the same way as the angel Gabriel did or during the mocking of Jesus? It doesn’t seem appropriate that Jesus would be acclaiming or paying homage to the women. And then the women worship him.
No, clearly from the context, he isn’t. I spot-checked some modern translations and found that they simply render the passage as “He greeted them” or something along those lines. The RSV simply says “Hail!”

Hail (and the Latin Ave) both originate from a wish for good health (both the English and Latin etymologies, and the Greek chaire[te] has more of the sense of joy, as in “rejoice”, and in a lesser sense, casual greeting.

So a translation decision does seem to be have to be made based on the context as to whether “chaire[te]” should be translated as a royal greeting (Hail, ave) or a more casual/regular one.

I must admit I didn’t give this much thought earlier in the thread and it does appear that the Greek has a wider range of intensity than the English or Latin (hail/ave), and it seems that from the Greek alone, context plays a role in determining whether chaire is an everyday or royal greeting.
 
Looking at the entry you quoted, I believe the dictionary is tracing the first recorded use of “ave” as an English word to the 13th century. No lexicographer would be ill-informed enough to think that the Latin ave originated several centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, but it seems there was a period in which “ave” was adopted as a Middle English word.

It’s like tracing, say, the first recorded use of “tortilla” or “forte” in a normal English sentence. That says nothing about how old the words are in their original languages, just when they were adopted into English.

Usagi
However my beef with the Dictionary quotation is that it completely omits the true origin of the word, perhaps an important information when we are discussing ancient greeting words in Koine Greek, Aramaic and Latin all languages that predate English by EONS.

In this day and age when most people get their information on the Internet and rampant ignorance on our newer generations I feel that such a quote is misleading at best, how can a neophyte learn that “Ave” is NOT an English word by that quotation.

Notice also that it is the “Merriam-Webster” Dictionary NOT an obscure unknown website.
Any way it pushes my buttons 😛

 
I must admit I didn’t give this much thought earlier in the thread and it does appear that the Greek has a wider range of intensity than the English or Latin (hail/ave), and it seems that from the Greek alone, context plays a role in determining whether chaire is an everyday or royal greeting.
Yes, I think you’ve put your finger on the key point. In English we feel it’s appropriate to use a more casual form of greeting in some contexts than in others, but the unwritten rules of etiquette governing decisions of that kind probably aren’t the same in any two languages. When we read the Bible in English we can be confident that the translators have made due allowance for these rules and will have taken the trouble to use different English words, in different social situations, to translate a single word in the original Greek or Hebrew. But we shouldn’t read too much into that. It tells us something about the peculiarities of the English language, but no more than that. It’s not giving us any meaningful information about shades of meaning in the original languages: how the angel Gabriel actually addressed Mary in Aramaic or Hebrew, or what the soldiers actually said in Latin or Greek when they were mocking Jesus.
 
So a translation decision does seem to be have to be made based on the context as to whether “chaire[te]” should be translated as a royal greeting (Hail, ave) or a more casual/regular one.

I must admit I didn’t give this much thought earlier in the thread and it does appear that the Greek has a wider range of intensity than the English or Latin (hail/ave), and it seems that from the Greek alone, context plays a role in determining whether chaire is an everyday or royal greeting.
Yes, I think you’ve put your finger on the key point. In English we feel it’s appropriate to use a more casual form of greeting in some contexts than in others, but the unwritten rules of etiquette governing decisions of that kind probably aren’t the same in any two languages. When we read the Bible in English we can be confident that the translators have made due allowance for these rules and may have taken the trouble to use different English words, in different social situations, to translate a single word in the original Greek or Hebrew. But we shouldn’t read too much into that. It tells us something about the peculiarities of the English language, but no more than that. It’s not giving us any meaningful information about shades of meaning in the original languages: the word that the angel Gabriel used when he addressed Mary in Aramaic or Hebrew, or what the soldiers actually said in Latin or Greek when they were mocking Jesus.
 
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