There are more than 1,900 Greek words that occur only once in the NT. Known as hapax legomena (Gk., “things said [only] once”), these words comprise nearly one third of the total vocabulary in the NT. The great majority of these hapax legomena are also known from secular writings. Only a few such words are attested only in the NT, making their translation difficult. But there is one Greek word which has continued to puzzle scholars, despite the fact that it also occurs at least three other times in extant Greek writings independent of the NT: homeiromai (ὁμείρομαι), 1 Thess 2:8. One finds a wide diversity among the various translations that scholars have proposed: “being affectionately desirous of” (KJV, RV, ASV, RSV); “Having thus a fond affection for you” (NASB); “We loved you so much” (NIV); “crooning over you” (the late Abe Malherbe); “Feeling so devoted and protective towards you” (Jerusalem Bible); and “While we were separated from you” (Norbert Baumert). My paper attempts to establish the meaning of ὁμείρομαι in 1 Thess 2:8 by looking at the three other known occurrences of this word, including a fifth occurrence which so far has not yet been reported. I will also attempt to determine the meaning of this word by examining how it was translated in the ancient versions, in particular the Old Latin, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic versions. I will also show how the comments of some patristic writers, especially those in the fourth and fifth centuries, shed light on its meaning. In his work _Moralia_, Basil the Great cites 1 Thess 2:8 several times as he describes the kind of brotherly love that Christians should have for one another. And in one passage, he provides a paraphrase of 1 Thess 2:8 where he replaces ὁμείρομαι with ἐν πολλῇ διαϑέσει τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ἀγάπης (“in much disposition of the love in Christ”). Basil’s younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, describes ὁμείρομαι in one of his homilies as a term expressing τὴν ἀγαπητικὴν . . . σχέσιν (“the feeling of love”). In the same century, when commenting upon 1 Thess 2:8, John Chrysostom defines ὁμείρομαι with ἐπιϑυμέω (to “desire”), and in the next century Theodoret of Cyrus defines it with ποϑέω (to “long for”). Finally, I will present the definitions given by ancient lexicographers like Hesychius of Alexandria, Photius, and Suidas, and I will argue that ὁμείρομαι is merely an alternate form of the common verb ἱμείρομαι. This conclusion runs counter to modern lexicographers, like the late Frederick William Danker, who held that these two words were “prob[ably] not related etym[ologically]” (BDAG, p. 705). But I will argue that in distinguishing ὁμείρομαι and ἱμείρομαι as two separate words, modern scholars have actually created a word that never existed.