the.com/gross
144 of something, or 1 of something disgusting — math never warned you about the overlap.
means Either a count of 144 (a dozen dozen) or an adjective for something disgusting, revolting, or repellent — two unrelated meanings riding the same five letters.
from Both senses trace back to Latin 'grossus,' meaning thick or coarse. The counting sense came through French 'grosse douzaine' ('a thick dozen'), where 'gross' meant a bulk unit of twelve dozen — the word simply described a large, thick quantity. The disgusting sense traveled the same root a different way: 'thick, coarse' shifted to mean 'crude, unrefined, indelicate' by the 1500s, and from there slid into 'flagrant' and eventually 'disgusting.' So the two meanings aren't a coincidence of spelling — they're siblings, both born from 'thickness,' that simply wandered off in different directions.
- origin
- from old french grosse meaning large or thick
- dozen math
- a gross equals twelve dozen, 144 items
- revenue sense
- total before deductions, the number that lies cheerfully
- meaning drift
- large became coarse became disgusting over centuries