# 2,579 Words Appear Only Once in the Bible

> 2,579 of the 11,168 distinct words in the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified) occur exactly once — 23% of the vocabulary, carrying a fraction of a percent of the text.

Question: words that appear once in the Bible
Answer: 2,579
Page: https://chinese-bible.com/en/reference/words-that-appear-only-once

Words that occur once are called hapax legomena, and they are the reason a vocabulary list is a bad plan for reading. Learning every word in the Bible means learning 2,579 you will meet a single time; skipping them costs almost nothing, because together they account for 0.4% of word tokens.

Most are names, places and hapax technical terms — the measurements of the tabernacle, the stones of the breastplate, the officials of a foreign court. The practical response is to read with a tap-to-reveal reader and let them go.

The opposite end of the distribution is where study time belongs: 1,900 words cover 90% of the text, and the site's decks are built from that end of the list.

## A sample of words that occur once

| Word | Word | Word | Word | Word | Word |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 上分 | 拉活 | 送走 | 罪大恶极 | 纵横 | 略作 |
| 联盟 | 精练 | 惊人 | 女同 | 喜事 | 声闻 |
| 二人转 | 戏言 | 天明 | 来历 | 同父异母 | 合家 |
| 遮羞 | 女仆 | 睛 | 加进 | 庶出 | 两国 |
| 皮衣 | 玩 | 日增 | 埃 | 羔皮 | 民事 |
| 聚齐 | 神气 | 俊秀 | 深爱 | 不一定 | 裙子 |

2,579 words in total; 36 shown.

## Questions

**Should I learn them?**

Not deliberately. Recognise the shape, tap for the meaning, move on — that is what the reader is for.

**Are they all names?**

Not all, but many: 662 words in this text look like proper names by their dictionary gloss.

**Which words should I learn instead?**

The 825 most frequent, which cover 80% of the text. The decks are ordered exactly that way.

## Method

- Text: 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script — public domain
- Words: forward maximum matching against CC-CEDICT (this site's own segmentation)
- HSK levels: HSK 3.0 levels from the complete-hsk-vocabulary list; band 7 covers HSK 7-9
- Reading times: 260 characters a minute (an assumption)
- Computed: 2026-09-22

These are reproducible counts over a public-domain text, not a peer-reviewed study. Difficulty ranks are one stated formula, not a validated readability score.


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- Definitions: CC-CEDICT, licensed CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
- If you share this file onward, keep this notice and share alike.
- Character data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License / LGPL).
- Bible text: public domain — 和合本 · World English Bible · Louis Segond 1910.
- Built with https://chinese-bible.com