vulgus
English
Noun
vulgus (plural vulguses)
- (UK, education, historical) A school exercise in which pupils are tasked with writing a short piece of Greek or Latin verse on a given subject.
- 1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days
- So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the three fell to work with Gradus and dictionary upon the morning's vulgus.
- 1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days
Latin
Alternative forms
- volgus
Etymology
From Proto-Italic *wolgous, from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to throng, crowd”), see also Welsh gwala (“sufficiency, enough”), Middle Breton gwalc'h (“abundance”), Ancient Greek εἴλω (eílō, “to roll up, pack close”), Sanskrit वर्ग (varga, “group, division”), Latin volvō.
Some have attempted, without success, to link it to Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁-go, whence English folk.
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /ˈu̯ul.ɡus/, [ˈu̯ʊɫ̪ɡʊs̠]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈvul.ɡus/, [ˈvulɡus]
Noun
vulgus n sg or m sg (genitive vulgī); second declension
- (uncountable) the common people
- (uncountable) the public
- throng, crowd
- Synonyms: multitūdō, turba
- gathering
Declension
Second declension, usually nominative/accusative/vocative in -us.
Case | Singular |
---|---|
Nominative | vulgus |
Genitive | vulgī |
Dative | vulgō |
Accusative | vulgus vulgum |
Ablative | vulgō |
Vocative | vulgus vulge |
Second declension neuter, nominative/accusative/vocative in -us. Also rarely encountered as a regular masculine second declension noun.
There is also the heteroclitic ablative singular vulgū.
Derived terms
- vulgāris
- vulgārius
- vulgivagus
- vulgō
Related terms
- vulgāritās
- vulgāriter
- vulgātē
- vulgātor
- vulgātus
Descendants
- Galician: vulgo
- Italian: volgo
- Portuguese: vulgo
- Romanian: vulg
- Sicilian: vulgu
- Spanish: vulgo
References
- “vulgus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- vulgus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- vulgus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
- Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- to divulge, make public: efferre or edere aliquid in vulgus
- to be a subject for gossip: in ora vulgi abire
- a demagogue, agitator: plebis dux, vulgi turbator, civis turbulentus, civis rerum novarum cupidus
- to divulge, make public: efferre or edere aliquid in vulgus