freír

Forms

freír (first-person singular present frío, first-person singular preterite freí, past participle freído or frito)^[1] The past participle is freído or, far more often, frito.^[1][2] From the participle frito some dialects formed new infinitives: fritir in the Castilian of Galicia, fretir in Salamanca, and fritar in Colombia and Salamanca.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frīgō (“to roast, fry”), through Old Spanish friir.^[3][4][5][1] Wiktionary explains the Old Spanish form by a change of conjugation, and the modern form by dissimilation of its two vowels.^[1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese frigir, Galician frixir, Asturian frir, Aragonese freyir, Catalan fregir, Occitan fregir, French frire, Italian friggere and Romanian frige.^[6][7][1]

The Latin verb is very close to Ancient Greek φρύγω (phrúgō, “to roast”) in form and meaning, but the two cannot be matched by sound laws; de Vaan suggests the Latin verb may be a loanword, perhaps from Greek by an indirect route.^[8] Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva trace both to the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to roast”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's translation of the falconry book of Moamín (1250) tells the reader to fry myrobalans in oil until they burn: tomen delos mirabolannos quebolis e frianlos en azeyt.^[10] The BDELC dates the verb to 1335, while the DCECH finds the participle frito in a 1389 manuscript of Juan Ruiz and the infinitive freír about 1400, in the Escorial glossaries.^[4][3] The CDH's first hits for the lemma are the place name Frías and the noun frío, not the verb.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija in 1495 glossed freír en sartén, “to fry in a pan”, with Latin frigo.^[12] The figurative uses are old: In Juan del Encina fretir means “to hurl”, which the DCECH explains from the idea of lightning that “fries” or wounds, as in the phrase freír a palos.^[3] Today the verb also means to pester someone, to riddle with bullets, and, reflexive, to roast in the heat.^[5][2]

The phrase ¡vete a freír espárragos! sends someone packing, and the proverb al freír será el reír warns that the consequences come later.^[2] In the Americas the verb is first recorded in Santo Domingo in 1535, of fried fish.^[13] Paraguay and Argentina say a freír mondongo for “go to the devil”.^[14]

Timeline

• 1250 – frian in Moamín's book of hunting animals.^[10]
• 1335 – the BDELC's date of first record.^[4]
• 1389 – the participle frito in manuscript G of Juan Ruiz.^[3]
• c. 1400 – the infinitive freír in the Escorial glossaries.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives freír en sartén and freidura.^[12][3]
• 1525 – the compound sofreír, in Nola.^[3][4]
• 1535 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1732 – the derivative fritada in Autoridades.^[3][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fry: to cook food in boiling oil or fat; also intransitive and reflexive.^[5][1]
2. To pester or torment someone again and again: Me fríe con sus quejas.^[5][2]
3. (colloquial) To riddle with wounds; to shoot down: freír a tiros.^[5][15]
4. (colloquial, reflexive) To roast, to be very hot.^[5][2]

Word family

• fritura
• fritada
• refreír
• sofreír
• frito
• fritanga
• sofrito
• freiduría

Related words

• Latin frigo
• Portuguese frigir
• Catalan fregir

Usage notes

Freír is conjugated like reír: frío, fríes, frió, friendo.^[2] The participle frito is the usual one, though the regular freído is also correct.^[2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. freír
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 952
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. freír
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. freír
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2928
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. frīgere
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. frīgō
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. freír
10. ^ 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. freír
11. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. freír
12. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. freír
13. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. freír
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. freír
15. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. freír