Etymologically
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group

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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
  • 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