greg-, -gregate, -gregation

Someone who advocates, or enforces, the opening of places and organizations to people of all races, genders, and ethnic groups, etc.: Martin Luther King was well-known as a desegregationist and he was assassinated by someone who was opposed to Mr. King's fight for equality of all races.

1. Flagrant, gross, or intolerable: The contractor committed an egregious error in the construction of Marian's house because when it rained, water leaked through the roof into the attic.
2. Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: Ron made an egregious error in his financial report and so he was recognized as an egregious liar.
3. Etymology: from Latin egregius, from the phrase ex grege, "rising above the flock", from ex-, "out of" + grege, ablative of grex, "herd, flock".

The sense of "disapproving", which is now predominant, came about in the 16th century; but it originally referred to something ironic and is not from the Latin meaning, which etymologically simply meant "exceptional".

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Descriptive of being very bad and easily noticed: The writer had egregiously presented many errors in his article about an actor and so he was being sued for slander.

The doctor warned a customer in the restaurant about the egregiously bad quality of the food that was being served there.

Although the cartoon is presented as an adjective, it helps to illustrate this adverb entry.

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Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
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That which is eminently or conspicuously bad: The egregiousness of the athlete was revealed when it was proven that he took performance enhancing drugs for several years.

A reference to certain insects during the period in which they are clustering in large numbers and are highly active: The agricultural students noticed that during the gregaria phase of the locusts life cycle, they were very noisy and moving around a great deal.

1. Seeking and enjoying the company of others; being sociable: As a gregarious individual, Samuel loves to be with large gatherings of people.
2. Tending to move towards, or to convene with, others of the same interests: The geese in the ravine near Rose's home are very gregarious and they often spend a lot of time eating together.
3. Relating to being fond of socializing with other people: Maya's cat is not a very gregarious creature, because it hides from her friends when they come to visit.
4. A clustering of plants in a manner that does not choke or inhibit the growth of the individual plants: The perennial flowers in the garden propagate, developing in a gregarious pattern across the backyard.
5. Animals tending to herd together: Buffalos tend to be very gregarious animals as they move together as united members of the group.
6. Etymology: "living in flocks" (such as, animals), from Latin gregarius, "pertaining to a flock; of a herd, of the common sort, common" from grex, gregis, "flock, herd"; "to gather together, to assemble"; also comparable to Greek ageirein, "to assemble"; agora, "assembly". © ALL rights are reserved.
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Descriptive of being in a flock or a pack; in a company with others: Penguins tend to move gregariously, swimming and coming ashore in pods; it is assumed that this behavior is for their safety against predators.

1. Tending to associate with others of one's kind and being fond of company: The authors of gritty novels often write about the gregariousness of bar flies, or men who converge in bars to drink.
2. Being marked by or indicating a liking for companionship; being sociable in an assemblage: The figurines on the shelf clustered together, their gregariousness looking as if they were animated after dark, getting together to talk about the children sleeping in the next room.
3. Living in contiguous nests but not forming a true colony; especially, with reference to wasps and bees: During his apprenticeship working on the agricultural research farm, Justin noticed the gregariousness of the wasps in the vicinity of the barns.

To slaughter or murder groups of people or other creatures: History around the world is, sadly, replete with examples of ill-informed leaders gregiciding people from a different background or beliefs.

1. To separate from others or to set aside from a main body or association: It is considered wrong to segregate disabled people from the rest of society.

During apple harvests, damaged fruit is segregated from the main crop and used for making cider.

2. To impose the isolation of a race or class from the rest of society: Historically, lepers were commonly segregated from the rest of the population because they were thought to be highly infectious, so those who were not contaminated with leprosy segregated the lepers into places away from the other inhabitants.

An action or situation of disengaging people or things away from other people or things: The school had set up an academic segregation of pupils with learning problems so they could have more appropriate curricula to meet their learning needs.

Relating to the detaching or keeping people, animals, or objects apart from others: The library has segregational procedures of putting oversized books on different shelves from the normal sized books.

Someone or those who separate or disconnect people or things from others: In the past, there were U.S. policies when government segregationists kept Indian nations isolated on their reservations.

Characterized by being divided into clusters or sets: The segregative policies that existed before in the U.S. have changed considerably in our current times.

Sparsely distributed; occurring in small, poorly defined arrangements: The desert brush was distributed across the valley in a vixigregarious manner primarily due to the scarcity of water.