Gregarious — From Latin to English | etymologist.ai
gregarious
/ɡɹɪˈɡɛəɹ.i.əs/·adjective·1660s·Established
Origin
From Latin 'grex' (herd), from PIE *ger- (to gather) — a sociable person as 'flock animal,' kin to 'aggregate' and 'congregate.'
Definition
Fond of company; sociable; tending to live in flocks or herds rather than alone.
The Full Story
Latin1660swell-attested
From Latin gregārius (of or belonging to a flock or herd, common), from grex (genitive gregis) (flock, herd), from PIE *h₂ger- (to gather, to assemble). The Proto-Indo-European root *h₂ger- conveyed the gathering of people or animals into a group. In Latin, grex designated a flock of sheep or a herd, and gregārius described anything belonging to the common herd — Roman soldiers of the rank and file were milites gregārii, common soldiers as opposed to officers
Did you know?
'Egregious' and 'gregarious' share thesame flock: Latin 'grex.' 'Egregious' literally means 'standing out from the flock' (ē + grex) — originally a compliment for someone outstandingly good, but by the 16th century it had flipped to mean outstandingly bad. A gregarious personjoins the flock; an egregious one
outstandingly excellent, now meaning outstandingly bad). This cluster of English words from a single Latin root about flocking and herding reveals how deeply animal husbandry