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Origin and history of vulgar

vulgar(adj.)

late 14c., "common, usual, ordinary, in general use; what is commonly used or understood," often in reference to writing or language, from Latin vulgaris, volgaris "of or pertaining to the common people; low, mean," from vulgus, volgus "the common people, the multitude, crowd, throng," for which de Vaan offers no further etymology.

In English the meaning "coarse, low, ill-bred" is recorded by 1640s, probably from earlier sense (with reference to people) of "belonging to the ordinary class; of, pertaining to, or suited to the common people" (early 15c.). Chaucer uses peplish for "vulgar, common, plebeian" (late 14c.). Related: Vulgarly. The word is perhaps from late 13c. as a surname, if [Hugh the] Wulger is what it appears to be.

What we have added to human depravity is again a thoroughly Roman quality, perhaps even a Roman invention: vulgarity. That word means the mind of the herd, and specifically the herd in the city, the gutter, and the tavern. [Guy Davenport, "Wheel Ruts"]

Vulgar Latin was the everyday speech of the Roman people, as opposed to literary Latin; the modern spoken Romanic languages largely are descended from Vulgar Latin. For more on it, see here.

also from late 14c.

vulgar(n.)

c. 1400, "the vernacular, a native or common language," a sense now obsolete, from vulgar (adj.). It is attested by 1510s as "commoners, the common people," and by 1763 in reference to those not in or fit for polite society.

also from c. 1400

Entries linking to vulgar

divulge(v.)

mid-15c., divulgen, "make public, send or scatter abroad" (now obsolete in this general sense), from Latin divulgare "publish, make common," from assimilated form of dis- "apart" (see dis-) + vulgare "make common property," from vulgus "common people" (see vulgar). Sense of "to tell or make known something formerly private or secret" is from c. 1600. Related: Divulged; divulging.

vernacular(adj.)

c. 1600, "native to a country, indigenous," from Latin vernaculus "domestic, native, indigenous; pertaining to home-born slaves," from verna "slave born in his master's house," in transferred use, "a native," said to be a word of Etruscan origin.

In English it is restricted to the sense in Latin vernacula vocabula, in reference to the native language or ordinary idiom of a place. As a noun, "native speech or language of a place," from 1706. Compare vulgar. Fitzedward Hall (1873) uses home-English for vernacular English. Related: Vernacularism.

For human speech is after all a democratic product, the creation, not of scholars and grammarians, but of unschooled and unlettered people. Scholars and men of education may cultivate and enrich it, and make it flower into the beauty of a literary language; but its rarest blooms are grafted on a wild stock, and its roots are deep-buried in the common soil. [Logan Pearsall Smith, "Words and Idioms," 1925]