Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to gather."
It forms all or part of: aggregate; aggregation; agora; agoraphobia; allegory; category; congregate; cram; egregious; gregarious; panegyric; paregoric; segregate.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit gramah "heap, troop;" Greek ageirein "to assemble," agora "assembly;" Latin grex "flock, herd," gremium "bosom, lap;" Old Church Slavonic grusti "handful," gramota "heap;" Lithuanian gurgulys "chaos, confusion," gurguolė "crowd, mass;" Old English crammian "press something into something else."
"deserving censure, blameworthy," late 13c., coupable, from Old French coupable (12c., Modern French coupable), from Latin culpabilis "worthy of blame," from culpare "to blame," from culpa "crime, fault, blame, guilt, error." De Vaan writes that this might be from a PIE root *kuolp- "to bend, turn" (source also of Greek kolpos "bosom, lap;" see gulf (n.)). According to his sources, "The original meaning of culpa is 'a state of error' rather than 'an error committed'." English (and for a time French) restored the first Latin -l- in later Middle Ages. Related: Culpably; culpableness.
1725, "the need very badly to urinate," from Latin micturitum, from past participle of micturire "to desire to urinate," desiderative of mingere "to urinate," from PIE root *meigh- "to urinate." As during the final 20 minutes of a 4-hour film after drinking a 32-ounce Mountain Dew from the snack bar and the movie ends with a drawn-out farewell scene while Frodo is standing on the pier and wavelets lap audibly on the dock the whole time as if the director was a sadist set on compounding your torment. Also used, incorrectly, for "act of urinating."
