group

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡruːp/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French groupe (“cluster, group”),^[2][3][4] from Italian gruppo (“group, knot”), a by-form of groppo (“knot, tangle”),^[5][6] probably from Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“round mass, lump”),^[2][3] akin to Old High German kropf (“craw”) and to English crop.^[5][7][4] The Shorter Oxford takes the original sense to be “lump” or “mass”;^[4] Klein traces the Italian word through Old Occitan grop (“knot”),^[8] and Barnhart calls it of uncertain, perhaps Germanic, origin.^[9] Because it was borrowed after the Great Vowel Shift, its ou is pronounced as in French.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

An arrangement of figures or objects forming a whole in a painting or design, a term of art criticism (1686).^[10][2]

Semantic evolution

Group entered English as an artists' term,^[2][11] and Barnhart cites it in Dryden's translation of Dufresnoy's The Art of Painting (1695), the work Johnson later quoted to define it.^[12][13] By 1736 it was used of any assemblage of things,^[2][12] and by 1748 of people standing together.^[10] Groups formed by classification, of plants, animals or rocks, followed in the 18th and early 19th centuries,^[14][4] and the meaning “a band of pop musicians” dates from 1958.^[2] Groupie, a fan who follows a rock group, is from 1967.^[12] In South Africa the word took a narrower sense under apartheid, an ethnic group as defined by the Group Areas Act of 1950.^[15] The verb, first “to arrange (figures) harmoniously”, is from 1718; the intransitive use dates from 1801.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1686 – figures forming a unit in a work of art.^[10][5]
• 1718 – verb, to arrange figures or colours in a group.^[10][2]
• 1736 – any assemblage of things.^[2][12]
• 1748 – a group of people.^[10]
• 1794 – a division in biological classification.^[14]
• 1801 – verb (intransitive), to form a group.^[2][10]
• 1950 – (South Africa) an ethnic group under the Group Areas Act.^[15]
• 1958 – a band of pop musicians.^[2]
• 1967 – groupie.^[12]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A number of people or things together in one place.
2. A number of people or things classed together because they share something.
3. A band of musicians who play pop music together.
4. Several companies under common ownership.
5. (chemistry) A column of elements in the periodic table; also, a set of atoms that keeps its identity in many compounds.
6. (mathematics) A set with an operation that combines any two of its elements to give a third.
7. A military or air-force unit.
8. (art) Two or more figures making up a unit in a painting or sculpture.

Verb

1. To put or arrange in a group.
2. To form a group.
3. To sort into groups; to classify.

Word family

• groupable
• groupwise

Related words

• crop
• croup

Usage notes

As a collective noun group takes a singular verb when the members are thought of together (the group is ready) and a plural verb when they are thought of as individuals (the group were divided).^[3]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ a b A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles, Dictionary Unit for South African English, https://dsae.co.za