Bible dictionaries

Fashion

What Bible dictionaries say about “Fashion”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Fashion - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

FASH'ION, n. fash'on. [L. facio, facies.]

1. The make or form of any thing; the state of any thing with regard to its external appearance; shape; as the fashion of the ark, or of the tabernacle.

Or let me lose the fashion of a man.

The fashion of his countenance was altered. Luke 9.

2. Form; model to be imitated; pattern.

King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar. 2 Ki 16.

3. The form of a garment; the cut or shape of clothes; as the fashion of a coat or of a bonnet. Hence,

4. The prevailing mode of dress or ornament. We import fashions from England, as the English often import them from France. What so changeable as fashion!

5. Manner; sort; way; mode; applied to actions or behavior.

Pluck Casca by the sleeve,

And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you

What hath proceeded.

6. Custom; prevailing mode or practice. fashion is an inexorable tyrant, and most of the world its willing slaves.

It was the fashion of the age to call every thing in question.

Few enterprises are so hopeless as a contest with fashion.

7. Genteel life or good breeding; as men of fashion.

8. Any thing worn. [Not used.]

9. Genteel company.

10. Workmanship.

FASH'ION, v.t. fash'on.

1. To form; to give shape or figure to; to mold.

Here the loud hammer fashions female toys.

Aaron fashioned the calf with a graving tool. Exo 32.

Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, what makes thou? Isa 14.

2. To fit; to adapt; to accommodate; with to.

Laws ought to be fashioned to the manners and conditions of the people.

3. To make according to the rule prescribed by custom.

Fashioned plate sells for more than its weight.

4. To forge or counterfeit. [Not used.]

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

fash'-un (mishpaT; schema, the make, pattern, shape, manner or appearance of a thing (from Latin faction-em, "a making," through Old French fatson, fachon)): In the Old Testament the noun "fashion" represents 3 Hebrew words:

(1) MishpaT = literally, "judgment," hence, judicial sentence, right, custom, manner; usually translated "judgment" (very frequent), but also a few times "sentence," "cause," "charge," and more frequently "manner" (nearly 40 times in the King James Version). In 3 passages it is translated "fashion," in the sense of style, shape, make, in each case of a building or part of a building (Ex 26:30; 1Ki 6:38; Eze 42:11).

(2) Tekhunah = literally, "arrangement," "adjustment" (compare takhan, "to set right," "adjust," from kun, hekhin, "to set up," "establish"); Eze 43:11, "the form of the house, and the fashion thereof." A cognate word in the preceding verse is translated "pattern" (the Revised Version, margin "sum").

(3) Demuth = "resemblance" (from damah, "to be similar"), generally translated "likeness" in English Versions of the Bible, but "fashion" in 2Ki 16:10, where it means pattern or model. The verb "to fashion" stands for

(a) yatsar, "to form," "fashion" (Ps 33:15; 139:16 the King James Version; Isa 22:11 the King James Version; Isa 44:12; 45:9);

(b) `asah, "to work," "make," "form" (Job 10:8);

(c) kun, "to set up," "establish," "prepare" (Job 31:15; Ps 119:73; Eze 16:7);

(d) tsur, "to bind up together," "compress" (Ex 32:4, of Aaron fashioning the golden calf out of the golden rings).

In the New Testament, the noun represents 5 Greek words:

(1) Of these, the most interesting is schema, "figure," "shape," "fashion" (from schein, aorist of echein, "to have," compare Latin habitus, from habeo, "I have"). Schema denotes a transient, external semblance or fashion, and so it may be distinguished from its synonym morphe, which denotes the essential intrinsic form of a thing, expressing its real nature. (See Lightfoot, Detached Note on Php 2; Trench, New Testament Syn., 252 ff; Gifford, Incarnation, 22 ff. The distinction is rejected by Meyer, on Ro 12:2, and by others.) In the New Testament, the noun schema occurs but twice: 1Co 7:31, "The fashion of this world passeth away," where there seems to be an allusion to theatrical scenes, which are in their very nature transitory (compare 2 Macc 4:13); and Php 2:8, "being found in fashion as a man," i.e. having the outward figure and bearing of a man, such marks of human nature as strike the senses (contrast morphe Theou, "form of God," Php 2:6, and morphe doulou, "form of servant," 2:7, which describe Christ's real inner nature). The word schema is found in compound verbs in the following passages: Ro 12:2, "Be not fashioned (sunschematizesthe) according to this world: but be ye transformed (metamorphousthe) by the renewing of your mind" (so the Revised Version (British and American)), paraphrased by Sanday and Headlam, "Do not adopt the external and fleeting fashion of this world, but be ye transformed in your inmost nature" (Comm. in the place cited.); 2Co 11:13 f, metaschematizomai, the King James Version "transformed," better the Revised Version (British and American) "fashioned," the reference being to "the fictitious, illusory transformation whereby evil assumes the mask of good" (Lightfoot, Commentary on Phil, 131); 1Pe 1:14, "not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts," paraphrased by Lightfoot, "not falling in with the capricious guidance of the passions" (same place) . In Php 3:21, the adjective summorphos is translated "fashioned" in the King James Version, but better "conformed" as in Revised Version (British and American).

(2) Eioos, eidos, literally, "thing seen," "external appearance," "shape," is translated "fashion" in Lu 9:29, of the glorified appearance of the transfigured Christ.

(3) prosopon, literally, "face," hence, look, appearance, Jas 1:11, "The grace of the fashion of it perisheth."

(4) tupos, type, model, translated "fashion" in Ac 7:44 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "figure"), the Greek word being taken from the Septuagint of the quoted passage, Ex 25:40. The same phrase, kata ton tupon, in the parallel passage, Heb 8:5, is translated "according to the pattern."

(5) In one instance the phrase "on this fashion," "in this manner," represents the Greek adverb houtos, "thus" (Mr 2:12).

D. Miall Edwards

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915