Bible dictionaries
By
What Bible dictionaries say about “By”, one article after the other.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
By - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)
In the expression "by myself" (A.V., 1 Cor. 4:4), means, as rendered in the Revised Version, "against myself."
Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
The article in Easton + Webster 1828International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)
In the sense of "against" which survives only in dialectal English (compare Wright, Dialect Dict., I, 470, for examples) is the King James Version rendering of the dative emauto of 1Co 4:4 (the American Standard Revised Version renders this "against"). In classical Greek the same idiom sunoida with dative = "be conscious" or "be cognizant of" a thing.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2
The article in ISBE 1915