frairie

Forms

frairie f (plural frairies)^[1] Old French frarie, later frerie and fraierie;^[2][3][4] Middle French phrairie (1534).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French frarie, inherited from Latin frātria (“phratry”), a word used in Christian Latin for a confraternity, which is from Ancient Greek φρατρία (phratría, “phratry”), from φράτηρ (phrátēr, “member of a phratry”).^[2][3][4][1] The form frerie arose under the influence of frère, and the spelling with ⟨ai⟩ was a reaction toward the etymology.^[2][3]

Bloch and Wartburg treat it rather as an early French derivative of the word for brother on the model of confrérie, noting that the kept /a/ points to a very old formation, while asking whether the late form Late Latin fratria, found from the 9th century, carries it back to the Greek.^[5] Its learned doublets are phratrie and fratrie.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as frarie about 1165 in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, meaning a company or brotherhood.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word meant a guild or confraternity; a 14th-century text speaks of the frarie of the drapers and that of the tanners.^[6][5] From the shared feasts of these brotherhoods it came to mean a feast given over to merrymaking and good food (1543),^[2][3] the sense of La Fontaine's wolf étant de frairie (1668).^[4] Furetière and the Académie called it a low word.^[4] From before 1553 (Rabelais) it is also the patronal feast of a village, a sense still alive in western France, around Poitou.^[3][4][5]

Timeline

• c. 1165 – Frarie “confraternity” in the Roman de Troie.^[2][4]
• c. 1265 – Jean de Meun writes frerie and frairie.^[4]
• 1534 – Phrairie in the title of a Paris guild manual.^[2][3]
• 1543 – Frerie “feast, merrymaking”.^[2][3]
• before 1553 – Rabelais uses it for a village patronal feast.^[3][4]
• 1668 – La Fontaine's wolf is de frairie.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) A feast of merrymaking and good food: être de frairie, faire frairie, to take part in one.^[7][2][6]
2. (regional) The patronal festival of a village, in western France.^[7][2]

Related words

• frère
• confrérie
• phratrie
• fratrie
• Latin frātria

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert