mergus

Forms

mergus m (genitive mergī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is probably from Latin mergō (“to dip, plunge”), the bird that dives into the water.^[2][3][1] That verb goes back to Proto-Italic *mezge/o- and Proto-Indo-European *mesg-e/o- (“to sink, wash”);^[2] de Vaan compares Lithuanian mazgóti and Latvian mazgât, both “to wash”.^[2]

Ancient grammarians saw the same link: Varro says the bird is called mergus because it catches its food by diving into the water.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler record it first in Lucilius,^[2][5] in a joking phrase, mergus agrārius, for a man eager to own land, quoted in the life of Pertinax in the Historia Augusta.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

It names several seabirds, probably gulls according to the OLD;^[3] Lewis & Short and Wiktionary take it as a diver.^[7][1] Lucretius writes of birds that seek their food in the salt sea,^[3] Ovid explains its name by its diving,^[7] and Pliny the Elder says that these birds foretell rain when they flee the sea.^[7]

In viticulture it was a layer, a shoot bent down into the ground to take root: Columella advises renewing old vineyards with layers rather than laying them down whole, and Pliny the Elder also has it.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius jokes about a “land diver”.^[2][5][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of seabirds.^[3][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of a layer of a vine.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder says these birds foretell rain.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A seabird, probably a gull;^[3] a diver or similar diving waterfowl.^[7][1]
2. (viticulture) A layer of a vine.^[3][1]

Word family

• mergulus

Related words

• mergō
• gāvia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press