Gorge

Gorge, strictly the French word for the throat considered externally. Hence it is applied in falconry to a hawk’s crop, and thus, with the sense of something greedy or ravenous, to food given to a hawk and to the contents of a hawk’s crop or stomach. It is from this sense that the expression of a person’s “gorge rising at” anything in the sense of loathing or disgust is derived. “Gorge,” from analogy with “throat,” is used with the meaning of a narrow opening as of a ravine or valley between hills; in fortification, of the neck of an outwork or bastion; and in architecture, of the narrow part of a Roman Doric column, between the echinus and the astragal. From “gorge” also comes a diminutive “gorget,” a portion of a woman’s costume in the middle ages, being a close form of wimple covering the neck and upper part of the breast, and also that part of the body armour covering the neck and collarbone (see Gorget). The word “gorgeous,” of splendid or magnificent appearance, comes from the O. Fr. gorgias, with the same meaning, and has very doubtfully been connected with gorge, a ruffle or neck-covering, of a supposed elaborate kind.

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