fraguar

Forms

fraguar (first-person singular present fraguo, first-person singular preterite fragüé, past participle fraguado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote fraugar, also fraguar and fragar;^[2][3] Aragonese texts have fraucar and frauguar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fraugar, inherited from Latin fabricor (“to fashion, make”), beside the active fabricō.^[2][4][5][1] The Latin verb is a derivative of fabrica (“workshop, craft”), which gave the noun fragua.^[6][2] The learned fabricar is its doublet.^[1]

Through a similar development French made forger, which Spanish borrowed as forjar in 1406.^[2][4][7] A form with the diphthong ⟨au⟩ reduced, frogar “to build with bricks”, gave Asturian forgar (“to plane wood”).^[2][8] Other cognates are Catalan fargar, Portuguese fraguar and Italian fabbricare.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record in a Spanish text is in the Liber Regum (1194–1211, in a copy of the first quarter of the 13th century): Cyrus freed the Jews que fuessen fraugar el temple de Iherusalem “so that they might go and build the temple of Jerusalem”.^[10][2] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar has Fraguo Moysen altar “Moses built an altar”.^[10] The first sense was to build.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose has both senses, to build and to forge metal.^[11] Medieval Aragonese texts speak of frauguar moneda, minting coins.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as heating iron in the forge and shaping it roughly with the hammer.^[12]

Autoridades added the figurative sense of devising a plan, and the masons' sense of mortar or plaster setting hard.^[13] From 1869 the Academy noted that the figurative sense is mostly used in a bad sense.^[14][5] In Peru it can mean to rig an election result.^[15] The old sense “to build” survives among the Jews of Morocco and the East.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1090 – an Aragonese charter from Sobrarbe has fraucar.^[2][4]
• 1194–1211 – the Liber Regum has fraugar “to build”.^[10][2]
• 1256 – the Picatrix of Alfonso X uses fraguar for forging.^[11]
• c. 1300 – the Fueros de Aragón have frauguar moneda.^[2]
• 1406 – the French loan forjar appears in an Aragonese inventory.^[2]
• 1543 – first record from the Americas, in Puebla, of well-set bricks.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines forging iron.^[12]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the figurative sense and the masons' sense.^[13]
• 1869 – the Academy notes the pejorative use of the figurative sense.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To forge metal.^[5][1][17]
2. To devise or hatch a plan, mostly in a bad sense: Los conspiradores fraguaban su golpe desde hacía meses.^[5][1][17]
3. (intransitive, construction) Of lime, plaster or cement: to set and harden.^[5][1]
4. (Peru, rare) To rig or falsify something, especially election results.^[15]

Word family

• fraguado

Related words

• fábrica
• forja
• fragua
• orfebre
• fabricar
• forjar
• Latin fabricō
• French forger

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 941
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fragua
5. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. fraguar
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2623
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. fraguar
11. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. fraguar
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 861
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 788
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos