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Shay Singh Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

What is the meaning of -ous in "Gregarious"?

Hi, I have 2 questions about the word gregarious:

1) The first is about the suffix -ous. I know that in most cases, -ous means to be "full of." However, can it also have other meanings, such as in the word gregarious? I just wanted to confirm, because when I look up its etymology, I see that gregarious (gregis + ous) means "disposed to live in a herd/flock".

So can the suffix -ous also mean "disposed to" or "pertaining to"?

2) gregis means "herd/flock," and "-ous" is the suffix in the word. And I know that the "i" in the word is a "filler letter" to ease the pronunciation. However, I'm confused about the significance of the "ar" in the middle of the word. What does that mean? Are those also "filler letters"? If not, then where did they come from and what do they mean?

Thank you so much!

  

Top answer

The Latin is nearly the same: gregarius . lemma=GREGARIUS100 Shay Singh However, I'm confused about the significance of the "ar" in the middle of the word. It is not "ar" but "gar".

— AlpheccaStars

  • The Latin is nearly the same: gregarius .
  • lemma=GREGARIUS100 Shay Singh However, I'm confused about the significance of the "ar" in the middle of the word.
  • It is not "ar" but "gar".
  • The linguistic pattern is called reduplication .
  • The root is "ger" and the reduplication is "gar".
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