Meaning & use
Jude
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Meanings
proper nounproper
A male first name, used in English-speaking countries and linked to the saint known as the patron of hopeless causes.
Grammar: Always capitalized and used as a person's name: Jude called yesterday.
Patterns
- call someone Jude
My cousin Jude is training to be a nurse.
They named their second son Jude after his great-grandfather.
Jude waved from across the platform and ran to catch the train.
proper nounproperreligion
The short letter near the end of the New Testament, attributed to a follower of Jesus, warning believers against false teachers.
Grammar: Treated as the title of a book and used without 'the': Jude is only one chapter long.
Patterns
- the Epistle of Jude
- the book of Jude
The group read Jude aloud, since the book is only twenty-five verses long.
Her sermon drew on a passage from Jude about staying faithful.
He looked up the verse in Jude to check the exact wording.
Common combinations
- the book of Jude
- The book of Jude comes just before Revelation.
- the Epistle of Jude
- The Epistle of Jude is among the shortest in the Bible.
- Saint Jude
- Many people pray to Saint Jude when a situation seems impossible.
- Hey Jude
- The whole crowd sang Hey Jude at the end of the concert.
Word family
Commonly confused: Jude or Judas?
Jude vs Judas
Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, while Jude was a different follower; the two names look alike but belong to different people.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'Jude' as the title of a text rather than as a person's name?
Choose one answer.
Only the last sentence refers to the biblical letter. In the others, Jude is a first name, so the context of reading a passage is the clue.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Jude”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.