grex

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin grex (“flock”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹɛks/

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

• grex name
• gregaric

Further reading

• Grex (horticulture) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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 [script needed] (haṃ-grīs, “to gather, assemble”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ɡreks/, [ɡrɛks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ɡreks/, [ɡrɛks]

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 iūmentum (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

• pecus

Derived terms

• gregālis
• gregārius
• gregātim

Related terms

• gregō

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: gregge
    • → Middle French: grege
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Old Gascon: grey
  • Old Occitan: grec, grei
• Ibero-Romance:
  • Old Leonese: gree
  • Old Galician-Portuguese: grei
    • Portuguese: grei
    • Galician: grei, grea
  • Old Spanish: grey
    • Spanish: grey
• Borrowings:
  • → English: grex
  • →? Old Irish: graigh
  • → Proto-Albanian: [Term?]
    • Albanian: grigjë
  • →? Proto-Brythonic: [Term?]
    • Welsh: gre

References

• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “grĕx”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 4: G H I, page 268

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^[1], 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.