When thinking of the word gregarious, we often associate it with outgoing individuals. However, its origins date back to a 1668 essay where it was used to describe animals that live in flocks. This biological term is still used in zoology, as well as in botany to refer to plants that grow in clusters. The word comes from Latin gregarious, meaning “of or pertaining to flocks”. This term was derived from the Latin word grex, which means “flock” or “herd”, and can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root hger, meaning “assemble” or “gather”. Interestingly, grex also gave rise to words like aggregate (“to collect the flock”), congregate (“with the flock”), segregate (“apart from the flock”), and egregious (“out of the flock”). The similarity between gregarious and egregious often leads to confusion among speakers, highlighting the interconnectedness of these terms.
