A couple weeks ago, my husband asked, “Are gorgeous and gorge related?” I had no idea. But of course, this being us, we both immediately said, “Word of the Week!” and I vowed to look it up. 😉
And it turns out…YES! Gorgeous and gorge are indeed from the same root, meaning “throat.” Which immediately makes sense for gorge, right? It’s from the idea of cramming food down your throat. But gorgeous? How does that track?
The history is a bit iffy, but etymologists think it’s linked to necklaces that adorn the throat. Jewelry would have been the first things to be called gorgeous, meaning “elegant,” and from there, “splendid, showy, sumptuously adorned”…like jewelry. The word dates from around 1500 in English, coming to us from French, which in turn came from Latin, which is thought to come from the Greek gorgias…Gorgias being a man famous for his rhetoric (hence his voice and things that come from his throat–anyone who’s read the Socratic dialogues will be familiar with him!)
Word Nerds Unite!
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
