gurges

English

Two ways of depicting a gurges.

Etymology 1

Latin gurges.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɝd͡ʒiz/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɜːd͡ʒiːz/

Noun

gurges (plural gurges or gurgeses)

1. (rare) A whirlpool.
   • (Can we date this quote?), Wilyem Clark, Edgewise, Wilyem Clark, page 72:

     It was early—only ten p.m.—but already gurgeses of light and gales of sound frothed in unison to a familiar relentless heartbeat.

2. (heraldry) A series of typically four to six concentric annulets (in early heraldry, from at least the 1200s), or a spiralling line from the centre to the edge of the shield (in late heraldry); a stylized whirlpool.
   • 1847, Henry Gough, A Glossary of Terms Used in British Heraldry: With a Chronological Table, Illustrative of Its Rise and Progress, page 153:

     Argent, a gurges azure, is borne by GORGES, of Langford, Wilts., created a Baronet 1612. As the gurges (like the fountain) represents water, argent and azure are its proper tinctures.

   • 1894, British Museum. Department of Manuscripts, Walter de Gray Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, page 294:

     A shield of arms of early shape : three gurgeses (or roundles charged with a central pellet and two annulets concentric), two and one.

Etymology 2

Noun

gurges

1. plural of gurge

Further reading

• “gurges”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “gurges”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “gurges”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Anagrams

• Rueggs, uggers

Latin

Etymology

Possibly a reduplicated form of Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to devour”) (whence also vorō). Compare Sanskrit गर्गर (gargara, “whirlpool, eddy; water-jar; subterranean drain”), Ancient Greek γόργυρα (górgura, “underground drain; water-pot; trough”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈɡur.ɡes/, [ˈɡʊrɡɛs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈɡur.d͡ʒes/, [ˈɡurd͡ʒes]

Noun

gurges m (genitive gurgitis); third declension

1. whirlpool
2. eddy
3. gulf, sea
4. abyss
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 3.591–592:

     Adsiliunt flūctūs, īmōque ā gurgite pontus vertitur, et cānās alveus haurit aquās.

     The waves leap up, the sea is churned from its lowest abyss, and the hull drinks the white waters. (trans. Anne and Peter Wiseman, 2011)

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	gurges	gurgitēs
Genitive	gurgitis	gurgitum
Dative	gurgitī	gurgitibus
Accusative	gurgitem	gurgitēs
Ablative	gurgite	gurgitibus
Vocative	gurges	gurgitēs

Descendants

• Catalan: gorg, gorga
• Middle French: gour
  • French: gour
    • → English: gour
• Galician: gorgozo
• Italian: gorgo
• → Italian: gurgite (from the inflected form gurgitem)

References

• “gurges”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “gurges”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• gurges in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• gurges in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to be drowned in the eddies: gurgitibus hauriri
    
• “gurges”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray