vulgus

English

Noun

vulgus (plural vulguses)

1. (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.

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]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈvul.ɡus/, [ˈvulɡus]

Noun

vulgus n sg or m sg (genitive vulgī); second declension

1. (uncountable) the common people
2. (uncountable) the public
3. throng, crowd

   Synonyms: multitūdō, turba

4. 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^[1], 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