frigid

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin frīgidus (“cold, chill, cool”),^[2][3][4][5] from frīgeō (“to be cold”),^[2][3][6][7] from frīgus (“cold, frost”),^[2][6][7] from Proto-Italic *srigos-, from Proto-Indo-European *srig- (“cold”).^[3][5] It is cognate with Ancient Greek ῥῖγος (rhîgos, “cold, frost”),^[3][8][9] and Klein also relates it to rigidus (“stiff”), the source of rigid.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cold as a quality: before 1425, in the Middle English Chauliac, of phlegm, fat and marrow.^[10][5] Hoad records this as a single 15th-century use before the word's real start in the 17th century.^[11]

Semantic evolution

After its one medieval use the word returned in the early 17th century.^[11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates "very cold" to 1619, Etymonline to the 1620s and the OED to 1622 in frigid zone, in Dekker and Massinger's Virgin Martir, and to 1639 for intense cold in general;^[9][3][2] Dictionary.com gives 1590–1600.^[12] The Latin word already had figurative senses, "indifferent" and "flat, dull, trivial",^[3] and English gained them quickly: Milton called something flat and unstirring frigid in 1643, and Browne used it for lacking warmth of feeling in 1658.^[2] In the 1650s it was also applied to sexual vigour, first of men, for impotent;^[3][2] today it is usually a derogatory word for a woman uninterested in sex.^[2][13] Johnson (1755) listed all these senses, and remarked that "cold" was seldom used but in science.^[14]

Timeline

• before 1425 – cold in quality.^[10][5]
• 1622 – frigid zone, a polar region.^[2]
• 1639 – intensely cold.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1619.^[9]
• 1643 – dull, flat, leaving the imagination cold.^[2]
• 1658 – lacking warmth of feeling; stiff, formal.^[2]
• 1660 – wanting in sexual vigour, impotent.^[2] Etymonline has the 1650s.^[3]
• 1844 – of things, chilling, depressing.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Extremely cold: the frigid waters off the Labrador coast.^[13][9][2]
2. Lacking warmth of feeling; stiff and formal, aloof: He answered with a frigid nod.^[13][9][2]
3. Sexually unresponsive or uninterested in sex, usually of a woman and usually derogatory.^[13][2][6]
4. Lacking imagination or spirit; dull, insipid.^[9][2][6]

Word family

• frigidity
• frigidly
• frigidness
• nonfrigid
• unfrigid
• frigid zone

Related words

• refrigerate
• refrigerator
• rigid
• sang-froid

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.