frégate

Forms

frégate f (plural frégates)^[1] Early spellings fregate and fraguate (1525) and frégatte (1536); later also fragate.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian fregata, probably through Provençal.^[2][5][6][7] The word spread from southern Italy (Neapolitan and Sicilian fragata) to every Mediterranean port, and the early variant fraguate was taken from the Sicilian form, probably the original one.^[2][5] Compare Occitan fragato, Catalan fragata, Spanish fragata and Portuguese fragata.^[2][5][4]

The origin of the Italian word is obscure.^[5][8][3] H. and R. Kahane proposed a metathesis of a type *fargata, from Medieval Latin infarchatum (“fitted with a movable bulwark”), itself after Ancient Greek ἄφρακτος (áphraktos, “unfenced, without a deck”), but the TLFi notes that this rests on a single late record, and Rey and Bloch and Wartburg see phonetic and morphological difficulties.^[2][5][6] Because the first frigates were small boats meant to lighten a galley or pick up its crew after a shipwreck, a past participle Latin naufragata of naufragō (“to be shipwrecked”) has also been suggested, with loss of its first syllable taken for the word for “ship”; its sense, “that has been wrecked”, fits poorly.^[6][5] P. Guiraud derived it from a popular past participle Vulgar Latin *fragata (“broken”), supposing a ship whose stern was cut away to form a slope.^[5][9] Littré reports Diez's derivation from fabricata (“made, built”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in 1525, in an inventory from Marseille, for a small rowing boat often in the service of a larger ship.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Taken with the Italian sense of a small, usually undecked rowing vessel of the Mediterranean, used for scouting and carrying dispatches,^[3][2] the word was later applied to various kinds of ships.^[5] In the 18th and 19th centuries the frigate was a fast three-masted warship with a single covered battery, between the corvette and the ship of the line; today it is an anti-submarine escort vessel.^[5][8][2]

From the speed of the ship, the word named a seabird, the frigatebird, in 1637.^[5][2][8] In slang it was used from 1821 for a young homosexual man.^[5] The verb frégater “to fine down the lines of a ship to make it faster” is recorded about 1680.^[5] English took the word as frigate in the 1580s.^[10]

Timeline

• 1525 – First recorded as fregate and fraguate in a Marseille inventory.^[2]
• 1536 – Spelled frégatte by Charles de Hémard.^[2]
• 1580s – English borrows it as frigate.^[10]
• 1637 – First used for the seabird.^[2][5]
• 1678 – The sense “three-masted warship” is recorded.^[3]
• c. 1680 – The verb frégater appears.^[5]
• 1821 – Slang sense “young homosexual man”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A small Mediterranean rowing vessel, usually without a deck.^[8][2][3]
2. (historical) In the age of sail, a fast three-masted warship carrying no more than sixty guns, lighter than the vaisseau of the line.^[8][2][11]
3. A modern warship used as an anti-submarine escort, between the corvette and the cruiser: capitaine de frégate “commander”.^[8][12][11]
4. (zoology) The frigatebird, a large seabird with a forked tail and a long hooked bill.^[8][11][1]

Word family

• frégater

Related words

• Italian fregata
• English frigate

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 23, 90b
8. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
12. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)