A flock of white sheep with a single black sheep standing in their midst
15 June 2022
The adjective egregious is often used in negative contexts, meaning flagrant, outrageous, or offensive. But it can also have a positive connotation, meaning exceptional, eminent, or especially worthy. The etymology is quite straightforward; it’s a direct borrowing from Latin, but the etymology is of interest because of the meaning of its root and when and how it was borrowed into English.
The Latin egregius means distinguished or excellent; it has no negative connotation—that connotation would develop in English usage. The root greg means flock, as in sheep or goats, and is also the root of gregarious, which literally means associated with the flock. Egregious, on the other hand, literally means outside of or distinguished from the flock.
Egregious is also an example of what is called an inkhorn term. These were words imported into English from Latin or Greek in the Early Modern Era, that is the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Inkhorn words were learned terms, associated with the classroom and ostentatious displays of education and erudition. As a result, most never entered common usage. Some, however, did pass into common use, and egregious is one of these.
The word appears in English in the mid sixteenth century in a translation of Polydore Vergil’s history of England. Here it is used in a passage about the Roman Emperor Constantine, who prior to becoming Emperor had led military campaigns in Britain:
This manne, as we have seyde beefore, after hee hadd geven the overthrowe to Maxentius and seased Italie into his handdes, proceaded to Rome, unto whome shortelie repaired Sylvester Bisshoppe, of singuler and ægregius holliness, and with facilitee perswaded himme to deserve well of the Christian religion, whoe of his owne accorde all readie hadd good affiaunce therein; farthermore, beefore that he went to Rome (as it is crediblie thought) hee was soe instructed of his own moother Helena, that goinge towards battayle he used the sygne of the crosse as a defence.
In the above passage egregious is being used in its positive sense, but the negative sense appears at about the same time. Here is an example of the adverb egregiously being used negatively in a 1553 translation of one of John Calvin’s homilies:
Be cause thei wold not seme to fight agai[n]st god w[ith]out swerd or buckler / thei bring and obiect the autoritie of this or [that] ma[n]n / as though the absolution of any one manne may exempt and deliv[er] them [that] thei be not co[n]demned of god. I wil not saie [that] thei lye egregiously / whe[n] thei alege soch men as thei do for the defence of their cause.
And here is an example of the word’s early use from Christopher Marlowe’s 1590 play Tamburlaine:
Egregious Viceroyes of these Eastern parts
Plac'd by the issue of great Baiazeth:
And sacred Lord the mighty Calapine:
Who liues in Egypt, prisoner to that slaue,
Which kept his father in an yron cage:
Now haue we martcht from faire Natolia
So, egregious is egregious in that the ovine etymology is not obvious to most English speakers today and in that it is an inkhorn term that managed to survive in common use.
Sources:
Calvin, John. Certain Homilies. Wesel, 1553, sig. Dviii. Early English Books Online.
Ellis, Henry, ed. Polydore Vergil’s English History, vol. 1 (c.1550). London: John Bowyer Nicols and Son for the Camden Society, 1846, 93. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Marlowe, Christopher. Tamburlaine, part 2. London: Richard Ihones, 1590, 2.1.1, sig. F3.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2014, s.v. egregious, adj., egregiously, adv.
Photo credit: Jesus Solana, 2008. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.