Where is the italicization in the King James translation of the Bible from and what does it mean?

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Accepted answer

The italics indicate a word that is implied in the Hebrew or Greek. Although some people describe these as "added" words, that is not really a useful way of thinking of them. Yes, there is often ambiguity in what is implied, but there's just as much ambiguity in the explicit words. Every Bible translation accounts for these implied words, but most do not put them in italics, because that is just how translation works.

An example of implied meaning in English is when we talk about "the rich" and "the poor". We understand that those mean "the rich people" and "the poor people". There would be many languages where translating those phrases would necessitate explicitly stating that it is people we're talking about.

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