grex

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English

Etymology

Latin grex (“flock”).

Pronunciation

Noun

grex (plural greges or grexes)

  1. (biology) A multicellular aggregate of amoeba.
  2. (horticulture) A kind of group used in horticultural nomenclature, applied to the progeny of an artificial cross from specified parents, in particular for orchids.
    Synonym: gx

Derived terms

Further reading

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *greks, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger- (“to assemble, gather together”) (though de Vaan prefers to reconstruct the Proto-Italic as *gʷreg-, and the Proto-Indo-European as *gʷreg- (“group, herd”)). Cognates include Lithuanian gurguole (“mass, crowd”) and gurgulys (“chaos, confusion”), Old Church Slavonic гръсть (grŭstĭ, “handful”), Welsh gre (“herd”), Ancient Greek γάργαρα (gárgara, “heaps, lots (of people, etc.)”), Khotanese (haṃ-grīs, “to gather, assemble”).

Pronunciation

Noun

grex m (genitive gregis); third declension

  1. (zoology) a group of smaller animals: a flock (of birds, sheep, etc.), a pack (of dogs, wolves, etc.), a swarm (of insects), etc.
  2. (figurative) a similar group of other things
    Synonyms: cumulus, acervus, massa, mōlēs, multitūdō
  3. a group of people: a crowd, a clique, a company, a band, a troop, etc.
    Synonyms: multitūdō, turba
  4. (sports) a team of charioteers.
  5. (theater) a troupe of actors.

Usage notes

Properly, a herd or drove of larger animals form a pecus n, a iumentum (when pulling carts), or an armenta (when pulling a plow), while smaller animals—especially domesticated pecudēs—form a grex. Its use for people is not necessarily pejorative in the way pecus is.

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative grex gregēs
Genitive gregis gregum
Dative gregī gregibus
Accusative gregem gregēs
Ablative grege gregibus
Vocative grex gregēs

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

  • Italo-Romance:
    • Italian: gregge
  • Gallo-Romance:
  • Ibero-Romance:
  • Borrowings:
    • → English: grex
    • →? Old Irish: graigh
    • → Proto-Albanian:
    • →? Proto-Brythonic:

References

  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 273

Further reading

  • “grex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “grex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • grex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
    • a theatrical company: familia, grex, caterva histrionum
    • the manager: dominus gregis
    • to feed a flock (of goats): pascere gregem
    • the herds are grazing: greges pascuntur (Verg. G. 3. 162)
  • "Pecus; Jumentum; Armentum; Grex" in H.H. Arnold's translation of Ludwig von Döderlein's Hand-Book of Latin Synonymes (1841), pp. 158–9.
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