Deed

Deed - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

DEED, n.

1. That which is done, acted or effected; an act; a fact; a word of extensive application, including whatever is done, good or bad, great or small.

And Joseph said to them, what deed is this which ye have done? Gen. x1iv.

We receive the due reward of our deeds. Luke 25.

2. Exploit; achievement; illustrious act.

Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn.

3. Power of action; agency.

With will and deed created free.

4. A writing containing some contract or agreement, and the evidence of its execution; particularly, an instrument on paper or parchment, conveying real estate to a purchaser or donee. This instrument must be executed, and the execution attested, in the manner prescribed by law.

Indeed, in fact; in reality. These words are united and called an adverb. But sometimes they are separated by very, in very deed; a more emphatical expression. Exo 9.

DEED, v.t. To convey or transfer by deed; a popular use of the word in America; as, he deeded all his estate to his eldest son.

ded: Used in its ordinary modern sense in EV. In the Old Testament it is used to translates five Hebrew words: gemylah, literally, "recompense" (Isa 59:18); dabhar, literally, "word," "thing" (2Ch 35:27 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "acts"; Es 1:17,18; Jer 5:28); ma`aseh (Ge 20:9; 44:15; Ezr 9:13); `alilah (1Ch 16:8 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "doings"; Ps 105:1 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "doings"); po`al (Ps 28:4 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "work"; Jer 25:14).

In the New Testament "deed" very frequently translates ergon (same root as English "work"; compare "energy"), which is still more frequently (espescially in the Revised Version (British and American)) rendered "work." In Lu 23:51; Ac 19:18; Ro 8:13; Col 3:9 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "doings," it stands for Greek praxis (literally, "a doing," "transaction"), each time in a bad sense, equivalent to wicked deed, crime, a meaning which is frequently associated with the plural of praxis (compare English "practices" in the sense of trickery; so often in Polybius; Deissmann maintains that praxis was a technical term in magic), although in Mt 16:27 (the King James Version "works") and Ro 12:4 the same Greek word has a neutral meaning. In Jas 1:25 the King James Version "deed" is the translation of Greek poiesis, more correctly rendered "doing" in the Revised Version (British and American).

D. Miall Edwards