refrigerate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin refrīgerātus, the past participle of refrīgerō (“to cool down, chill”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from re- and frīgerō (“to make cool”),^[2][3][6] from frīgus (“cold”),^[3][6][7] the noun related to frigid.^[4][5] Etymonline traces that family to Proto-Indo-European *srig- (“cold”),^[8] and Klein compares Ancient Greek ῥῖγος (rhîgos, “cold, frost”).^[4] Barnhart and Etymonline allow that the verb may also be in part a back-formation from refrigeration.^[5][8] The OED compares Middle French refrigerer, Spanish refrigerar and Italian refrigerare.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, cooled or kept cold: about 1440, in a translation of Palladius.^[2] The verb, to cool, appears before 1535, in Thomas More's Dialoge of Comfort;^[2] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date it to 1534.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Latin medical writers already used the verb for reducing fever and inflammation,^[2] and the first English uses of the verb are of that kind: cooling the body or a part of it.^[2] From 1559 it could mean to grow cold;^[2] from 1626, in Bacon, it was used of cooling the air.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "to cool", quoting Bacon on great breezes.^[9] The modern sense, keeping food and the like near or below freezing, is first recorded in an American patent of 1871;^[2] Barnhart has 1875.^[5] The OED compares the earlier noun refrigerator in its modern meaning, which it has from 1803, and Barnhart and Etymonline from 1824.^[2][5][8] Etymonline names earlier verbs for cooling, Middle English infrigiden and infrigidate, both early 15th century, and refroiden, used of cooling anger, from Old French refroider.^[8] The older verb senses are now rare.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1440 – adjective, cooled, chilled.^[2]
• before 1535 – verb, to cool the body or reduce its heat.^[2]
• 1559 – intransitive, to grow cold.^[2]
• 1626 – to cool the air, also figuratively to chill.^[2]
• 1871 – to keep something, especially food, at a temperature near or below freezing.^[2] Barnhart dates this sense to 1875.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To keep food or drink cold in order to preserve it, or to chill or freeze it: Keep the soup refrigerated until you serve it.^{[10][6][3][2]}
2. To make something cool or cold.^[6][3][2]
3. To extract heat from a body or substance and hold its temperature below that of its surroundings.^[3]
4. To become cool or cold.^[3][2][11]

Adjective

1. (obsolete) Cooled or kept cold; refrigerated.^[3][2]

Word family

• refrigeration
• refrigerative

Related words

• refrigerant
• refrigerator
• frigid
• 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 r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press