In ordinary Greek, a STAGE ACTOR — one who speaks from behind a mask, from hypo-krinomai, to answer or play a part; the masked professional of a theatre like the one at Sepphoris, an hour's walk from Nazareth. The moral sense came later; the theatrical one is what the word still carried. It is the Sermon's term for piety performed to an audience (Matthew 6:2, 5, 16), and 6:1 supplies the matching verb: righteousness done 'to be GAZED AT' (theathēnai — the root of 'theater'). ⚠ Matthew uses it more than the rest of the New Testament together (13 of about 18 occurrences), and the woes of chapter 23 hammer it six times. English 'hypocrite' is this word worn down: it now means somebody who fails to practise what they preach, where the Greek picture is narrower and sharper — somebody playing to a house. → first discussed at Matt 6:2