Etymologically
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mergus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈmɛr.ɡʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmɛr.ɡus][1]

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

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