gurges

Forms

gurges m (genitive gurgitis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is perhaps inherited from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to devour”), in a reduplicated form; this is the root of vorō (“to devour”) and Ancient Greek βάραθρον (bárathron, “pit”), but de Vaan and Wiktionary call the formation unclear, as is that of gurguliō (“gullet”).^[2][1][3] Lewis and Short compare gula (“throat”) and vorāgō (“abyss”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan, Köbler and the OLD give Lucilius as its first author, of the salt flood of the sea and, figuratively, of the glutton Gallonius: ō gurges Gallōnī.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

It is a swirling mass of water, an eddy or whirlpool, as Cicero's Charybdis that swallows such floods, and in a weaker sense, mostly in poetry, the waters of a river or sea.^[3][4] Figuratively it is a glutton or spendthrift, already in Lucilius, and became a Roman surname, as Fabius Gurges.^[3][4][1]

Church Latin glosses it “stream, whirlpool, raging abyss, waters”.^[6] In medieval Latin it also meant a weir.^[7] The TLL notes its continuation in Italian gorgo and Old French gourt.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of the sea and of a glutton.^[3][2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of whirlpools.^[3][5]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal of Fabius Gurges.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A whirlpool, eddy; an abyss.^[3][1][4]
2. (poetic) The waters, flood, sea.^[3][1][6]
3. (figurative) A glutton, spendthrift.^[3][1]
4. (Medieval Latin) A weir.^[7]

Word family

• ēgurgitō
• ingurgitō

Related words

• gurguliō
• vorō
• vorāgō

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes vorāgō and barathrum, an abyss in water, from vertex and gurges, which suppose water in rotation, a whirlpool.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper