Often when I read the Bible, a word just jumps out at me and I want to know more about the definition and use of that word. Language has changed through the years and a word can have an entirely different meaning today than it did 100, 500,1000 and 2000 years ago. We can look at dictionaries and lexicons that take this into account.
Doing a word study is another way to check a word's intent. In other words it helps to look at the way God used it before. Start by looking in a concordance for the word you want to define. You will have to collect all the uses of the word. Just start with limiting the list to those uses that occur in the grace administration, like the 7 church epistles; Romans - Thessalonians. These epistles are written expressly for those who have believed in the resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ. Later you can expand your study to the gospels and old testament.
Remember the Bible that we have today has been translated from other languages. In the concordance right after the word and the short definition, you will see the word you are looking for in Greek(New Testament) or Hebrew(Old Testament). That is the word you want to see all the uses for. When a translator translates a word he might chose another word in English that means the same thing (like boldness and confidence for 'parrhesia'). It is the same Greek word, but two different English words. You need to find these. In the back of your concordance, there is a list of Greek words and how they were translated and how many times they were translated this way. The same is true for Hebrew. When you find these other English words for the Greek word you are studying, go look those words up in the concordance, Then make a list of every place your Greek word is used. Now you can look through these and get a gist of God's definition of the word. It is good to read the context around a verse in each case.
The first use is something to look at also. God will define His own words and the the first use of a word can be significant. Take a look at the word 'parrhesia' in the blog and see what I mean. http://ginnyfrase.blogspot.com/search/label/boldness
Sometimes I get so excited when I see how God embedded great truths in the bible. The deeper one looks at the bible, the way becomes clear, believing explodes and it is so satisfying and thirst-quenching.
It is fun to share these things with others.
Here is a link to a great article on etymology of words:
http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/Etymologywords.htm
The number of times a word is used may be significant:
http://philologos.org/__eb-nis/
