Strong's #4100: mah (pronounced maw)
or mah {mah}; or ma {maw}; or ma {mah}; also meh {meh}; a primitive particle; properly, interrogative what? (including how? why? when?); but also exclamation, what! (including how!), or indefinitely what (including whatever, and even relatively, that which); often used with prefixes in various adverbial or conjunctive senses:--how (long, oft, (- soever)), (no-)thing, what (end, good, purpose, thing), whereby(-fore, -in, -to, -with), (for) why.
Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon:
/ ־ / ־ / /
mâh / mah / mâ / ma / meh
1) what, how, of what kind (interrogative pronoun)
1a) (interrogative)
1a1) what?
1a2) of what kind
1a3) what? (rhetorical)
1a4) whatsoever, whatever, what
1b) (adverb)
1b1) how, how now
1b2) why
1b3) how! (exclamation)
1c) (with preposition)
1c1) wherein?, whereby?, wherewith?, by what means?
1c2) because of what?
1c3) the like of what?
1c3a) how much?, how many?, how often?
1c3b) for how long?
1c4) for what reason?, why?, to what purpose?
1c5) until when?, how long?, upon what?, wherefore?
2) anything, aught, what may (indefinite pronoun)
Part of Speech: see above in Definition
Relation: a primitive particle
Usage:
This word is used 751 times:
Malachi 3:14: "It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance,"
