garš
Latvian
Etymology
From a derived adjective *gar-is of a masculine form *garyas, parallel to old neuter form *garyan (“forest, tree”), from Proto-Balto-Slavic *garā́ˀ, from the o-grade form *gʷorH-eh₂ of Proto-Indo-European *gʷerH- (> *h₁egʷr-), meaning “mountain, peak” and secondarily “forest” (via, e.g., “mountain surrounded by forest”), from which also “tree”. Therefore, there originally was a noun garš meaning “forest, tree”, which apparently left traces in certain Kurzeme placenames (e.g., Garatmatas, a forest in Matkule), but eventually disappeared, perhaps due to homophony with its derived adjective garš (< *garis). This adjective probably meant at first “(high) like a mountain”, “(tall, slender) like a tree” and then simply “high, tall” > “long”. Cognates include Lithuanian dialectal (reduplicated) gargãras, gargar̃as, gingãras (“long, tall animal or person”), Old Prussian garian (“tree”), Russian, Ukrainian гора́ (gorá, “mountain”), Bulgarian гора́ (gorá, “forest, mountain”), Czech hora (“mountain”) (dialectal also “forest of large trees”), Polish góra (“mountain”) (dialectal also “attic, loft”), Serbo-Croatian dialectal gòra (“mountain, forest, tree”), Hittite [script needed] (ẖegur-, “cliff, peak, spike”).[1]
Pronunciation
(file) |
Adjective
garš (definite garais, comparative garāks, superlative visgarākais, adverb gari)
- long (having a relatively great distance from one end to the other)
- gara aukla ― long string
- garš galds ― long table
- gara auguma cilvēks ― tall (lit. long height) person
- garas kājas ― long legs
- gari mati ― long hair
- putns ar garu knābi ― bird with a long beak
- gara ēna ― long shadow
- gara iela, upe ― long street, river
- garais pirksts ― the long finger (= middle finger)
- garie viļņi ― longwaves (radio waves with wavelength above 1,000 meters)
- (with numeric measurement in the accusative) long
- metru gara stieple ― one-meter long wire
- noiet divdesmit kilometru garu ceļa gabalu ― to go, cover a 20-kilometer long stretch of road
- long (having more than usual or necessary, appropriate, desired length; covering more of the body than usual)
- garš mētelis ― long coat
- gara kleita ― long dress
- garās zeķes ― stockings (lit. long socks)
- garie cimdi ― long gloves (e.g., women's gloves, up to the elbow)
- (of texts, speeches, etc.) long (having relatively large volume, relatively much content)
- garš romāns ― long novel
- gara poēma ― long poem
- garš teikums ― long, many-word sentence
- (of time periods) long (lasting for quite a while)
- gara ziema ― long winter
- garie ziemas vakari ― long winter evenings, nights
- garš mūžs ― long life
- garš laiks ― long, boring time (said whe none is bored)
- aiz gara laika, gara laika deļ ― because of boredom (lit. long time)
- garais gads ― leap (lit. long) year (with 366 days)
- (of events, activities) long (having a certain time duration)
- 'garš ceļojums ― a long journey
- ļoti gara saruna ― a very long conversation
- (phonetics, phonology) long (pronounced with longer duration)
- garš patskanis ― long vowel
- gara zilbe ― long syllable
- (of body parts) outstretched, extended
- Mārtiņš rokas pēc iespējas garākas izstiepis ― Mārtiņš stretched out (his) arms as far as possible
Declension
masculine (vīriešu dzimte) | feminine (sieviešu dzimte) | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular (vienskaitlis) |
plural (daudzskaitlis) |
singular (vienskaitlis) |
plural (daudzskaitlis) | ||||||
nominative (nominatīvs) | garš | gari | gara | garas | |||||
accusative (akuzatīvs) | garu | garus | garu | garas | |||||
genitive (ģenitīvs) | gara | garu | garas | garu | |||||
dative (datīvs) | garam | gariem | garai | garām | |||||
instrumental (instrumentālis) | garu | gariem | garu | garām | |||||
locative (lokatīvs) | garā | garos | garā | garās | |||||
vocative (vokatīvs) | — | — | — | — | |||||
Synonyms
- (of time): ilgs
Antonyms
Derived terms
References
- Karulis, Konstantīns (1992) “garš”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN