Etymograph

English

group

Group comes from French groupe ‘cluster, group’, from Italian gruppo, groppo ‘a knot, heap, group’, and ultimately from Vulgar Latin *cruppus.

  1. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*cruppus1reconstructed
  2. Italianc. 1300–presentgruppo1‘a knot, heap, group’
  3. Frenchc. 1600–presentgroupe1‘cluster, group’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1918group1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English group
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1918, William Babington Maxwell, Indianapolis: “Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing…”.

Lineage

  1. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*cruppusWiktionary, English groupreconstructed
  2. Italianc. 1300–presentgruppoWiktionary, English group‘a knot, heap, group’
  3. Frenchc. 1600–presentgroupeWiktionary, English group‘cluster, group’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1918groupWiktionary, English group. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1918, William Babington Maxwell, Indianapolis: “Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing…”

The story

In the "group theory" sense, calqued from French groupe, a term coined by the young French mathematician Évariste Galois in 1830.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-

creep, 6 more

through Proto-Germanic *kruppaz ‘a group’

crop, croup, 9 more

through Italian gruppo ‘a knot, heap, group, bag (of money)’

mog, 6 more

Today it means

noun A number of things or persons being in some relation to one another.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “group”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Vulgar Latin *cruppus / group

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