grex

See also: gřėχ́

English

Etymology

Latin grex (“flock”).

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

Further reading

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger- (“to assemble, gather together”). See also Spanish grey (“flock, crowd”) Lithuanian gurguole (“mass, crowd”) and gurgulys (“chaos, confusion”), Old Church Slavonic гроусти (grusti, “handful”), Sanskrit गण (gaṇá, “flock, troop, group”) and ग्राम (grā́ma, “troop, collection, multitude; village, tribe”), and Ancient Greek ἀγείρω (ageírō, “I gather, collect”), whence ἀγορά (agorá). See Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“lump, round mass, body, crop”).

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. (figuratively) 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

Descendants
  • Italian: gregge
  • Old Leonese: gree
  • Old Portuguese: grei
  • Old Spanish: grey
  • → Albanian: grigjë
  • → English: grex

References
  • “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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