mergere

Mergere is a Latin verb meaning to dip, sink, plunge, or bury. It is a third-conjugation verb, and its principal parts are mergō, mergere, mersi, mersum. The present active infinitive is mergere, and the present passive is mergor. In syntax, mergere typically takes a direct object or evokes a target that is being submerged or buried.

Uses of mergere span literal sinking and metaphorical submersion. For example, one might say navem in mare mergere to sink a ship in the sea, or aliquid in aqua mergere to submerge something in water. The verb also appears in compound forms such as immergere (to immerse) and submergere (to submerge), which extend the sense of dipping or burying into more specific actions. The passive voice and participles describe things that have been sunk or submerged, such as mersus (having been sunk).

Derivatives and related terms include emergere, formed with ex- or e- plus mergere, meaning to rise or come forth from water. The related English derivatives include emerge, emerge into visibility, immersion and immerse, and submerge, all tracing back to the same semantic field of sinking, dipping, and later moving outward or inward from a boundary between substances or states.

In scholarly use, mergere appears in classical Latin literature to describe physical sinking, burial, or dipping, and it also serves in extended or figurative language—such as concepts sinking into memory or being buried by events. The term’s root semantics of downward movement and immersion have contributed to a family of Latin-derived terms in many modern languages.