Perhaps from paio; a boy (as often beaten with impunity), or (by analogy), a girl, and (genitive case) a child; specially, a slave or servant (especially a minister to a king; and by eminence to God) -- child, maid(-en), (man) servant, son, young man.

see GREEK paio

1. a child, boy or girl; the Sept. for נַעַר and נַעֲרָה (Genesis 24:28; Deuteronomy 22:15, etc.): ὁ παῖς, Matthew 17:18; Luke 2:43; Luke 9:42; Acts 20:12; ἡ παῖς, Luke 8:51, 54; plural infants, children, Matthew 2:16; Matthew 21:15; ὁ παῖς τίνος, the son of one, John 4:51.

2. (Like the Latinpuer, equivalent to) servant, slave (Aeschylus choëph. 652; Aristophanes nub. 18, 132; Xenophon, mem. 3, 13, 6; symp. 1, 11; 2, 23; Plato, Charm., p. 155 a.; Protag., p. 310{c}. and often; Diodorus 17, 76; others; so the Sept. times without number for עֶבֶד (cf. Winers Grammar, p. 30, no. 3); cf. the similar use of German Bursch (Frenchgarcon, English boy)): Matthew 8:6, 8, 13; Luke 7:7 cf. Luke 7:10; Luke 12:45; Luke 15:26. an attendant, servant, specifically, a king's attendant, minister: Matthew 14:2 (Diodorus 17:36; hardly so in the earlier Greek writings; Genesis 41:37; 1 Samuel 16:15-17; 1 Samuel 18:22, 26; Daniel 2:7; 1 Macc. 1:6, 8; 1 Esdr. 2:16 1 Esdr. 5:33, 35); hence, in imitation of the Hebrew יְהוָה עֶבֶד, παῖς τοῦ Θεοῦ is used of a devout worshipper of God, one who fulfils God's will (Psalm 68:18 (); Psalm 112:1 (); Wis. 2:13, etc.) thus, the people of Israel, Luke 1:54 (Isaiah 41:8; Isaiah 42:19; Isaiah 44:1f, 21, etc.); David, Luke 1:69; Acts 4:25 (Psalm 17:1 (); () (Ald., Complutensian), etc.); likewise any upright and godly man whose agency God employs in executing his purposes; thus in the N. T. Jesus the Messiah: Matthew 12:18 (from Isaiah 42:1); Acts 3:13, 26; Acts 4:27, 30 (cf. Harnack on the Epistle of Barnabas 6, 1 [ET] and Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. 59, 2 [ET]); in the O. T. also Moses, Nehemiah 1:7f; the prophets, 1 Esdr. 8:79(81); Baruch 2:20, 24; and others. [SYNONYMS: παῖς, παιδάριον, παιδον, παιδίσκη, τέκνον: The grammarian Aristophanes is quoted by Ammonius (under the word, γέρων) as defining thus: παιδίον, τό τρεφόμενον ὑπό τιθηνου. παιδάριον δέ, τό ἤδη περιπατουν καί τῆς λέξεως ἀντεχόμενον. παιδίσκος δ', ὁ ἐν τῇ ἐχομένῃ ἡλικία. παῖς δ' ὁ διά τῶν ἐγκυκλιων μαθηματων δυνάμενος ἰέναι. Philo (de mund. opif. § 36) quotes the physician Hippocrates as follows: ἐν ἀνθρώπου φύσει ἑπτά εἰσιν ὧραι κτλ.. παιδίον μέν ἐστιν ἄχρις ἑπτά ἐτῶν, ὀδόντων ἐκβολης. παῖς δέ ἄχρι γονης ἐκφυσεως, τά δίς ἑπτά. μειράκιον δέ ἄχρι γενειου λαχνωσεως, ἐς τά τρίς ἑπτά, etc. According to Schmidt, παιδίον denotes exclusively a little child; παιδάριον child up to its first school years; παῖς a child of any age; (παιδίσκος and) παιδίσκη, in which reference to descent quite disappears, cover the years of late childhood and early youth. But usage is untrammelled from a child is expressed either by ἐκ παιδός (most frequently), or ἐκ παιδίου, or ἐκ (ἀπό) παιδαρίου. παῖς and τέκνον denote a child alike as respects descent and age, reference to the latter being more prominent in the former word, to descent in τέκνον; but the period παῖς covers is not sharply defined; and, in classic usage as in modern, youthful designations cleave to the female sex longer than to the male. See Schmidt, chapter 69; Höhne in Luthardt's Zeitschrift as above with for 1882, p. 57ff.]