# garš
## Latvian
### Etymology

From a derived adjective *gar-is of a masculine form *garyas, parallel to old neuter form *garyan (“forest, tree”), from Proto-Balto-Slavic *garā́ˀ, from the o-grade form *gʷorH-eh₂ of Proto-Indo-European *gʷerH- (> *h₁egʷr-), meaning “mountain, peak” and secondarily “forest” (via, e.g., “mountain surrounded by forest”), from which also “tree”. Therefore, there originally was a noun garš meaning “forest, tree”, which apparently left traces in certain Kurzeme placenames (e.g., Garatmatas, a forest in Matkule), but eventually disappeared, perhaps due to homophony with its derived adjective garš (< *garis). This adjective probably meant at first “(high) like a mountain”, “(tall, slender) like a tree” and then simply “high, tall” > “long”. Cognates include Lithuanian dialectal (reduplicated) gargãras, gargar̃as, gingãras (“long, tall animal or person”), Old Prussian garian (“tree”), Russian, Ukrainian гора́ (gorá, “mountain”), Bulgarian гора́ (gorá, “forest, mountain”), Czech hora (“mountain”) (dialectal also “forest of large trees”), Polish góra (“mountain”) (dialectal also “attic, loft”), Serbo-Croatian dialectal gòra (“mountain, forest, tree”), Hittite [script needed] (ẖegur-, “cliff, peak, spike”).

### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Adjective

garš (definite garais, comparative garāks, superlative visgarākais, adverb gari)
* long (having a relatively great distance from one end to the other)
    gara aukla ― long string
    garš galds ― long table
    gara auguma cilvēks ― tall (lit. long height) person
    garas kājas ― long legs
    gari mati ― long hair
    putns ar garu knābi ― bird with a long beak
    gara ēna ― long shadow
    gara iela, upe ― long street, river
    garais pirksts ― the long finger (= middle finger)
    garie viļņi ― longwaves (radio waves with wavelength above 1,000 meters)
* (with numeric measurement in the accusative) long
    metru gara stieple ― one-meter long wire
    noiet divdesmit kilometru garu ceļa gabalu ― to go, cover a 20-kilometer long stretch of road
* long (having more than usual or necessary, appropriate, desired length; covering more of the body than usual)
    garš mētelis ― long coat
    gara kleita ― long dress
    garās zeķes ― stockings (lit. long socks)
    garie cimdi ― long gloves (e.g., women's gloves, up to the elbow)
* (of texts, speeches, etc.) long (having relatively large volume, relatively much content)
    garš romāns ― long novel
    gara poēma ― long poem
    garš teikums ― long, many-word sentence
* (of time periods) long (lasting for quite a while)
    gara ziema ― long winter
    garie ziemas vakari ― long winter evenings, nights
    garš mūžs ― long life
    garš laiks ― long, boring time (said whe none is bored)
    aiz gara laika, gara laika deļ ― because of boredom (lit. long time)
    garais gads ― leap (lit. long) year (with 366 days)
* (of events, activities) long (having a certain time duration)
    'garš ceļojums ― a long journey
    ļoti gara saruna ― a very long conversation
* (phonetics, phonology) long (pronounced with longer duration)
    garš patskanis ― long vowel
    gara zilbe ― long syllable
* (of body parts) outstretched, extended
    Mārtiņš rokas pēc iespējas garākas izstiepis ― Mārtiņš stretched out (his) arms as far as possible

#### Synonyms

* (of time): ilgs

#### Antonyms

* īss

#### Derived terms

* garie viļņi
* garlaicīgs
* garums

### References

* ↑ Karulis, Konstantīns (1992) “garš”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca‎ (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN