# grex
## English
### Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin grex (“flock”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈɡɹɛks/

### Noun

grex (plural greges or grexes)
* (biology) A multicellular aggregate of amoeba.
* (horticulture) A kind of group used in horticultural nomenclature, applied to the progeny of an artificial cross from specified parents, in particular for orchids.
    Synonym: gx

#### Derived terms

* grex name
* gregaric

### Further reading

* Grex (horticulture) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

## Latin
### Etymology

From Proto-Italic *greks, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger- (“to assemble, gather together”) (though de Vaan prefers to reconstruct the Proto-Italic as *gʷreg-, and the Proto-Indo-European as *gʷreg- (“group, herd”)). Cognates include Lithuanian gurguole (“mass, crowd”) and gurgulys (“chaos, confusion”), Old Church Slavonic гръсть (grŭstĭ, “handful”), Welsh gre (“herd”), Ancient Greek γάργαρα (gárgara, “heaps, lots (of people, etc.)”), Khotanese [script needed] (haṃ-grīs, “to gather, assemble”).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ɡreks/, [ɡrɛks̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ɡreks/, [ɡrɛks]

### Noun

grex m (genitive gregis); third declension
* (zoology) a group of smaller animals: a flock (of birds, sheep, etc.), a pack (of dogs, wolves, etc.), a swarm (of insects), etc.
* (figurative) a similar group of other things
    Synonyms: cumulus, acervus, massa, mōlēs, multitūdō
* a group of people: a crowd, a clique, a company, a band, a troop, etc.
    Synonyms: multitūdō, turba
* (sports) a team of charioteers.
* (theater) a troupe of actors.

#### Usage notes

Properly, a herd or drove of larger animals form a pecus n, a iūmentum (when pulling carts), or an armenta (when pulling a plow), while smaller animals—especially domesticated pecudēs—form a grex. Its use for people is not necessarily pejorative in the way pecus is.

#### Declension

Third-declension noun.

#### Hyponyms

* pecus

#### Derived terms

* gregālis
* gregārius
* gregātim

#### Related terms

* gregō

#### Descendants

* Italo-Romance:
** Italian: gregge
*** → Middle French: grege
* Gallo-Romance:
** Old Gascon: grey
** Old Occitan: grec, grei
* Ibero-Romance:
** Old Leonese: gree
** Old Galician-Portuguese: grei
*** Portuguese: grei
*** Galician: grei, grea
** Old Spanish: grey
*** Spanish: grey
* Borrowings:
** → English: grex
** →? Old Irish: graigh
** → Proto-Albanian: [Term?]
*** Albanian: grigjë
** →? Proto-Brythonic: [Term?]
*** Welsh: gre

### References

* ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “grex, -gis”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 273

### Further reading

* “grex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “grex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* grex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co. a theatrical company: familia, grex, caterva histrionum the manager: dominus gregis to feed a flock (of goats): pascere gregem the herds are grazing: greges pascuntur (Verg. G. 3. 162)
* "Pecus; Jumentum; Armentum; Grex" in H.H. Arnold's translation of Ludwig von Döderlein's Hand-Book of Latin Synonymes (1841), pp. 158–9.
* Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “grĕx”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 4: G H I, page 268