fregar

Forms

fregar (first-person singular present friego, first-person singular preterite fregué, past participle fregado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fregar, inherited from Latin fricō (“to rub, chafe”).^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin verb is Portuguese fregar, Catalan fregar, Occitan fregar, French frayer (“to clear a path; to spawn”), Italian fregare and Romanian freca.^[5] García de Diego also lists Galician fergar, and the Basque ferekatu (“to scrub”) was borrowed from Romance.^[6][2]

De Vaan lists the Latin verb among the derivatives of Latin friō (“to crumble”), which he traces to Proto-Indo-European *bʰriH- (“to cut”).^[7]

The present long kept the stem without a diphthong, frega, as in the Corbacho and in López de Villalobos (died 1559).^[2] Covarrubias already writes the modern diphthongised form.^[2][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hits are in Abraham of Toledo's Moamín (1250, in a copy of the second half of the 13th century), of hawks rubbing their beaks with their claws, and in Alfonso X's Lapidario (c. 1250, in a mid-13th-century copy), of a stone: Et si la fregan con la leche … quaia toda la leche “and if it is rubbed with milk, all the milk curdles”.^[8] Corominas's first record is the Calila e Dimna of 1251, which compares a gentle person to cold sandalwood that grows hot and burns if it is rubbed hard.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that the verb soon covered less ground in Spanish than in Latin and the other Romance languages, because of estregar, frotar and rozar, and came to be used mostly for housework.^[2] In the Judizios de las estrellas (1254–1260) it is used for erotic caressing.^[9] The Autoridades defined it as rubbing one thing hard against another, and as washing plates, bowls and pans with lye or hot water and a scourer.^[10] The derivative fregona, a kitchen maid, is in Cervantes; in Spain it now also names a mop.^[2][11]

In most of Latin America fregar also means “to annoy, pester” and “to harm, ruin”.^[4][12] Corominas thinks the Argentine use might be an Italianism, but since it is also found in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Central America and Mexico, he takes it to be a chance coincidence with Italian.^[2] In Cuba the verb also meant “to whip, beat”.^[13] In Soria, Cantabria, Aragon and Asturias the verb is also used of fish spawning.^[6][14]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses fregan for rubbing a stone with milk.^[8]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna, the first record in the DCECH.^[2][3]
• 1254–1260 – the Judizios de las estrellas uses it for erotic caressing.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin frico and infrico;^[15] refregar is also first recorded in his vocabulary.^[15][3]
• 1548 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias uses the diphthongised present friega.^[2]
• 1613 – first record of fregona.^[3]
• 1732 – the Autoridades records the noun friega.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To rub one thing hard against another.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To scrub or wash something by rubbing it with a scourer, brush or cloth soaked in water and soap: Hoy te toca fregar a ti.^[4][17][1]
3. (transitive, colloquial, Latin America) To annoy or pester; also pronominal: Deja de fregar, que estoy trabajando.^[4][1]
4. (transitive, vulgar, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela) To harm or damage someone; also pronominal.^[4][12]

Word family

• fregona
• friega
• refregar
• friegaplatos
• fregadero
• fregado
• fregador
• fregotear
• refriega

Related words

• Latin fricō
• French frayer

Usage notes

Fregar is a stem-changing verb, conjugated like negar: friego, friegas.^[1][18] In Bolivia and Mexico ¡ya la fregamos! says that something went wrong, and in Mexico ¡ya ni la friegas! tells someone they are being very annoying.^[4]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 952
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fregar
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. fregar
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3501
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2923
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
9. ^ 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. fregar
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 793
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 280
12. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. fregar
13. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 797
14. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. fregar
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 355
16. ^ 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. fregar
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fregar
18. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 144