fresco

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian fresco (“cool, fresh”),^[2][3][4][5] used as a noun for fresh plaster and for coolness or fresh air.^[6][3] It was first recorded in English in the phrase “in fresco”,^[4][7][8] which Hoad, the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford take as standing for affresco or al fresco (“on the fresh (plaster)”),^[8][7][5] while Barnhart reads it as "in fresh (air)".^[4] The Italian adjective is of Germanic origin,^[9][6][10] from or akin to Old High German frisc (“fresh”),^[3][4][6] from Proto-Germanic *friskaz,^[3][11] the source of fresh.^[3][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Painting in watercolour on wet plaster: 1598, in Haydocke's translation of Lomazzo.^[2][13] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date the word to 1598 or the 1590s as well.^[4][3][6]

Semantic evolution

The art came first; a single painting done in this way is recorded from 1670.^[2] The Italian sense of coolness also came into English: fresco meant cool fresh air or shade from 1620 to the mid-18th century,^[2][13][3] and in fresco "in the fresh air", the sense now kept by alfresco.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) defined it as coolness or shade, "like that of the evening or morning", and also as a picture drawn in dusk rather than in glaring light.^[14] The verb, to paint in fresco, appears in 1849.^[2][4][3]

Timeline

• 1598 – painting in watercolour on wet plaster.^[2][4]
• 1620 – cool, fresh air (obsolete by 1760).^[2][13]
• 1670 – a painting done in this way.^[2]
• 1849 – verb, to paint in fresco.^[2][4][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The technique of painting on freshly spread, moist lime plaster with pigments in water, so that the colours become fixed as it dries.^[6][10][5]
2. A painting made in this way: The chapel walls are covered with frescoes of the saints.^[6][10][2]
3. Loosely, any mural painting.^[6]
4. (obsolete, 1620–1760) Cool, fresh air; shade.^[2][6][5]

Verb

1. To paint in fresco, or to decorate a wall or ceiling with frescoes.^[6][2]

Word family

• frescoer

Related words

• alfresco
• fresh
• secco

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.