gorge

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Middle English gorge,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French gorge (“throat; narrow passage”),^{[4][5][6][7][8]} from Late Latin gurga,^[9][6][3] also written *gurga, *gorga,^[4][10][11] usually taken as a variant of Latin gurges (“whirlpool, abyss”), which in Late Latin also meant the gullet.^{[6][3][12][13]} The OED calls the popular Latin form of unknown origin and the link with gurges very doubtful,^[4] and the American Heritage Dictionary has "perhaps".^[9] Weekley suggests that gurges was Latin slang for the throat, like testa (“tile”) for the head.^[11] The Latin word is related to gurguliō (“gullet, windpipe”),^[5][6] and Etymonline traces it to a reduplicated form of Proto-Indo-European *gwora- (“food, devouring”),^[5] the root of vorō (“to devour”).^[3] The verb is inherited from Middle English gorgen, borrowed from Old French gorgier (“to swallow”), also gorger, from the noun.^[5][4][6][3] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from the early 12th century for the throat and for the narrow neck of a fishing basket.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb, to eat greedily, is the older in English: about 1300 in Etymonline, probably before 1300 in Barnhart, in Kyng Alisaunder,^[5][6] which the OED dates before 1400.^[4] The noun meant the throat: about 1350 in Barnhart and the MED, where a psalter calls the throat of the wicked an open grave,^[6][2] after its use in a surname from 1185.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old French and Middle English the word was used especially of the crop of a falcon,^[11][4] and much of its later vocabulary comes from falconry: a hawk gorged, filling its crop,^[4][14] and the noun came to mean what had been swallowed, the contents of the stomach, from about 1439 in Barnhart and the 1520s in Etymonline.^[6][5][4] Phrases about casting up one's gorge then gave the figurative one's gorge rises, for disgust or later anger.^[4][5][15] The idea of a narrow opening through which things pass gave military and landscape senses:^[13] the rear entrance or neck of a bastion from 1669,^[4][7] and a narrow valley with steep rocky walls from 1769, in Thomas Gray's letters.^[4][6] Barnhart thinks the landscape sense may have been influenced by French,^[6] and Etymonline says it already existed in Old French;^[5] Ayto and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to the mid 18th century.^[13][16] The throat sense is now only archaic or rhetorical.^[4][14] In the United States from 1852 ice was said to gorge when it jammed a river, and an ice gorge is such a jam.^[4][14] The noun for an act of gorging oneself is recorded from 1854.^[4][3]

Timeline

• 1185 – as a surname.^[6]
• c. 1300 – verb, to eat greedily.^[5][6]
• c. 1350 – noun, the throat.^[6][2]
• c. 1450 – the crop of a hawk.^[4]
• 1486 – transitive verb, to fill the crop of a hawk; later to stuff with food.^[4]
• before 1529 – the contents of the stomach.^[4]
• 1532 – figurative, in phrases expressing disgust.^[4]
• 1669 – in fortification, the neck of a bastion.^[4]
• 1769 – a narrow rocky valley, in Gray.^[4][6]
• 1852 – of ice, to jam (United States).^[4]
• 1854 – noun, an act of gorging, a glut.^[4][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep, narrow valley with steep rocky sides, especially one with a river running through it; a ravine.^[14][3][4]
2. The contents of the stomach, especially in one's gorge rises, for a feeling of disgust or resentment.^[14][3][4]
3. A mass that blocks a channel: an ice gorge.^[14][4]
4. In fortification, the narrow rear entrance to a work or the neck of a bastion.^[14][4]
5. An act of eating greedily; a glut or feast.^[3][4][17]
6. The crop of a hawk.^[3][4]
7. (archaic) The throat or gullet.^[14][4][3]

Verb

1. To eat greedily and in large amounts: The children gorged on cake at the party.^[3][14][4]
2. To stuff oneself or another with food; to glut or satiate.^[14][4]
3. To swallow greedily.^[14][4]
4. To fill to the point of distension; to choke up, mostly as gorged.^[4][10]
5. Of a hawk, to eat until the crop is full.^[14][4]

Word family

• gorger
• gorgeable
• disgorge
• engorge
• regorge
• gorge hook

Related words

• gorget
• regurgitate
• ingurgitate
• voracious
• gorgeous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com