A noun meaning a garden bed, plot, or arrangement in rows—originally agricultural (beds of vegetables, especially leeks), but extended to mean groups or companies of people. Mark uses it to describe how the five thousand sat for the miraculous feeding: 'they sat down in groups' (Mark 6:40, used twice)—arranged in orderly companies like garden plots, by hundreds and fifties. The image is of organized sections, regular arrangement making distribution manageable. Luke uses a different word for this same scene; Mark's choice may reflect Peter's eyewitness memory of the striking visual pattern on the green grass.