grei

Forms

grei f (plural greis)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote gree and grey: Houaiss records gree in the 13th century, grey in the 14th and greey in the 15th.^[2][3][4] The dictionaries of Pereira (1697), Bluteau (1712–1728) and Morais (1789) head the word grey.^[5][6][7] Morais's edition of 1813 enters grei as the better spelling and refers it to grey.^[8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grex (“flock, herd”), written Old Galician-Portuguese gree and Old Galician-Portuguese grey in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Nascentes explains the diphthong by the vocalisation of the ⟨g⟩ between vowels of the Latin oblique stem, following Nunes's historical grammar.^[9]

The same Latin word is Galician grei, Spanish grey, Italian gregge and Sardinian arrei (Campidanese, “herd of large cattle”).^[10][11] The Spanish word is recorded from 1219.^[12]

De Vaan reconstructs *gʷreg- and *gʷreg- (“group, herd”) for the Latin noun, and compares the reduplicated Ancient Greek γάργαρα (gárgara, “heaps, lots (of people)”) and Lithuanian gurguolė (“heap”).^[13] Wiktionary calls the origin uncertain: Beekes takes the Greek and Lithuanian words for independent sound-symbolic formations, and Matasović reconstructs a root *greg- instead.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a charter of 1262 in which someone took away una gree d' ouellas “a flock of sheep”.^[4] The Crónica Geral speaks of as greys das ovellas “the flocks of sheep”, and the Galician-Portuguese Rule of Saint Benedict already applies the word to the monks entrusted to the abbot as a shepherd: da grey a ssi ĩcomẽdada “of the flock entrusted to him”.^[14][4]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the word means a flock or herd.^[4] The figurative senses “people” and “community” are taken from the 15th century on, according to Lorenzo's notes on Machado.^[4] Bluteau explains them in 1712–1728: the word is said of peoples, because princes are their shepherds, and of souls, whose shepherds are the priests and bishops.^[6] Morais (1789) defines it as a flock and as the subjects in relation to their prelate or king, and quotes the device of a pelican with the motto pela Lei, e pela grey “for the Law and for the people”.^[7]

Today the sense “flock” is literary: Aulete and Michaelis label it poetic.^[15][16] The usual senses are the congregation of a parish or diocese and, figuratively, a party or society.^[2][17][18] The sense “the king's subjects, a people” is marked as old.^[2][17][18]

Timeline

• 1262 – una gree d' ouellas in a charter.^[14]
• c. 1430 – grey in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[19]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro glosses Grey as rebanho “flock”.^[5]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau explains the figurative use for peoples and souls.^[6]
• 1734 – Feijó heads the word Grei, “the flock”.^[20]
• 1789 – Morais defines grey as a flock and as a ruler's subjects.^[7]
• 1813 – Morais prefers the spelling grei.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (poetic) A flock of small livestock, such as sheep or goats.^[2][15][16]
2. (Christianity) The congregation of a parish or diocese: O bispo dirigiu-se à sua grei.^[2][17][18]
3. (figurative) A party, society or association; the members of a group with a common cause: Ele nunca abandonou a grei política em que entrou.^[2][17][21]
4. (archaic) The subjects of a king; a people, a nation.^[2][17][18]

Related words

• gregário
• egrégio
• congregar
• segregar
• Latin grex
• Galician grei
• Spanish grey

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. grei
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. grei
4. ^ a b c d e f Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. grey
5. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grey
6. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grey
7. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 70
8. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 100
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 249
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3865
11. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. grei
12. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grey
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. gree
15. ^ a b Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. grei
16. ^ a b Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. grei
17. ^ a b c d e Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. grei
18. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. grei
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. grey
20. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grei
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. grei