What does gula mean?
Gula is a rare English noun with several distinct associations. Its best-known literary sense denotes excessive appetite or greed, especially for food, and it is often used in elevated or deliberately archaic language. An older sense refers to the throat or gullet, connecting the word with English gullet and the anatomical adjective gular. In modern international taxonomy, Gula is also the proper name of a genus of butterflies and is normally capitalized. The word entered English from Latin, where gula meant the throat and could by extension suggest appetite or gluttony. Although uncommon in ordinary speech, gula is useful to a lexicographer because it preserves both an anatomical meaning and the older association between the throat, hunger, and excess. Its rarity also gives it a learned, slightly dramatic quality that makes it especially effective in literary or historical prose.
nounExcessive appetite for food; gluttony. The word also formerly meant the throat or gullet, while Gula is the capitalized proper name of a genus of butterflies.
- Excessive appetite or greed, especially for food; gluttony.
- The throat or gullet, now chiefly archaic.
- A taxonomic proper name for a genus of butterflies, conventionally capitalized as Gula.
"Her gula was legendary: even the richest banquet rarely satisfied her."
"The feast tested the limits of even the guests' gula."
"A Gula butterfly alighted on the flowering shrub."
The Latinate plural gulae applies to the abstract noun in literary or learned usage; the taxonomic genus Gula is not pluralized as a genus.
"The chronicler catalogued the ruler's gulae with a cleric's exacting disapproval."
Latin gula means “throat,” but it also came to mean greed for food: a remarkably literal name for an appetite that cannot be satisfied.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does gula come from?
The English word comes from Latin gula, meaning “throat” or “gullet” and, by extension, appetite or gluttony. Latin gula gave rise to relatives including French gueule and Spanish gola, while English borrowed it directly in its learned senses. English gullet and gular preserve the same Latin root, and the butterfly genus Gula reuses the Latin name as a taxonomic proper name.
Related word forms
How gula is actually used
The ordinary English senses are rare, literary, or archaic, and the word often has a deliberately Latinate tone. As a taxonomic name it is capitalized as Gula and treated as a proper name.
Easily confused with gula
Gula is a rare literary or taxonomic word, whereas gullet is the ordinary English term for the throat and also for the passage between the mouth and stomach.