[ Etymonline: ] 1510s, from Latin gerundum "to be carried out," gerundive of gerere "to bear, carry" (see gest). In Latin, a verbal noun used for all cases of the infinitive but the nominative; applied in English to verbal nouns in -ing.
[1.] "So called because according to the old grammarians, the gerund prop[erly] expressed the doing or the necessity of doing something" [Century Dictionary]. ...
1 does not convince me, because it describes other verb forms also (eg: the imperative). So how and what do the ‘gerund' and 'gerundive‘ bear, carry? What underlying semantic notions connect gerere to this grammatical term?