gregatim

Forms

gregātim (not comparable)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin grex (“flock, herd”) + -ātim.^[1][2][3] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of grex, which goes back to Proto-Italic *gʷreg- and Proto-Indo-European *gʷreg- (“group, herd”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD find it first in Varro,^[4][2] who in his work on farming speaks of fish that came in shoals to the sound of a flute player.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It was used first of animals moving or kept together, such as herds of cattle, swarms of bees and elephants, which Pliny the Elder says always go about in herds.^[2][5] Cicero applied it to people, Roman citizens thrown in crowds into the stone quarries,^[2] and later writers used it of things as well, such as groans bursting out one after another.^[2] The TLL records it on into Late Latin authors such as Cassiodorus.^[3]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of fish gathering in a shoal.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of people herded together.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–AD 17 – Livy has it.^[2]
• 1st century AD – Columella contrasts livestock suffering as a herd with single animals.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder says that elephants always move in herds.^[5]

Meanings

Adverb

1. In flocks, herds or swarms, of animals.^[2][5]
2. In crowds, of people.^[2][5]
3. One after another, in a mass, of things.^[2]

Usage notes

Varro explained the name of the jackdaws, graguli, from their flying in flocks.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de