Q: I couldn’t find anything on the verb “gress,” yet it forms the root of many often used words today. How about a take on the apparently outdated verb and its offspring?
A: As far as we can tell, English has never had a verb spelled “gress,” though the noun “grease” was occasionally written as “gresse” and the verb as “greese.”
The “gress” element you find in many English words, (“aggression,” “digress,” “progression,” “transgressive,” and so on) ultimately comes from the Latin gress-, participial stem of gradi (to step or walk).
So etymologically speaking, “aggression” means stepping toward another in a hostile way, “digress” to step apart, “progression” a stepping forward, “transgressive” stepping beyond a boundary, “ingress” a stepping in, “egress” a stepping out.
Similarly, many English words include the element “grade,” which is also derived from the Latin gradi, present infinitive form of the verb gradior (to step or walk).
So, a “grade school” is made up of several “grades,” or steps, while students take a step up when they “graduate.” And a “centigrade” thermometer has 100 grades, or steps, from the freezing to the boiling points of water.
The word elements “gress” and “grade” are “morphemes,” linguistic forms that cannot be broken up into smaller meaningful units.
“Gress” is a “bound morpheme,” one that has meaning only when attached to other elements, like prefixes or suffixes, while “grade” is a “free morpheme,” one that can stand alone and make sense.
Here are a few early examples from the Oxford English Dictionary for various English words with “gress” and “grade” morphemes derived from the Latin terms for stepping:
- “In oure progresse to outward werkis.” From The Reule of Crysten Religioun, composed around 1443 by Reginald Pecock, published and edited in 1927 by William Cabell Greet.
- “Digresse or go a little out of the pathe, digredior.” From Abcedarium Anglo Latinum (1552), an English-Latin dictionary by Richard Huloet.
- “Aggression, an aggression, assault, incounter, or first setting on.” From A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611), by Randle Cotgrave.
- “Hou sone þat god hem may degrade” (“How soon that God may degrade them”). From “Song of Yesterday” (c. 1325), published in Early English Poems and Lives of Saints With Those of the Wicked Birds Pilate and Judas (1862), edited by Frederick J. Furnivall.
- “Master Edmund, that was my rewlere at Oxforth, berar her-of, kan tell yow, or ellys any oder gradwat” (“Master Edmund, who was my tutor at Oxford, bearer of [the letter] hereof, can tell you, or else any other graduate”). From a 1479 letter published in the Paston Letters (2004–2005), edited by Norman Davis, Richard Beadle, and Colin Richmond.
In case you’re interested, we’ll end with an expanded 15th-century “grease” citation from the OED with the verb spelled “greese” and the noun “gresse.”
The following passage is from a list of decrees issued in 1462 by the office of deacons at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Coventry:
“Hys Fellowe schall greese ye bellys [bellows] and Fynde gresse therto wan they nede.” From a transcript of the document included in a letter written on June 14, 1834, to British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical Information (Sept. 1, 1834).
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