garš

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]

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garš (definite garais, comparative garāks, superlative visgarākais, adverb gari)

1. 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)

2. (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

3. 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)

4. (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

5. (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)

6. (of events, activities) long (having a certain time duration)

   'garš ceļojums ― a long journey

   ļoti gara saruna ― a very long conversation

7. (phonetics, phonology) long (pronounced with longer duration)

   garš patskanis ― long vowel

   gara zilbe ― long syllable

8. (of body parts) outstretched, extended

   Mārtiņš rokas pēc iespējas garākas izstiepis ― Mārtiņš stretched out (his) arms as far as possible

• (of time): ilgs

• īss

• garie viļņi
• garlaicīgs
• garums