affrangere

Forms

affrangere (first-person singular present affràngo, first-person singular past historic affrànsi, past participle affrànto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin affrangō (“to break against, crush against”), formed from ad- and frangō (“to break”).^[2][3][1][4] The Latin verb is first found in Statius in the 1st century, beside the classical affringō.^[2][5] GRADIT, Treccani and Devoto call it Late Latin.^[6][7][8]

The same verb is Old French afraindre and Old Occitan afranher, both from the 12th century.^[2][5] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *frangō and to a nasal present of the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰreg- (“to break”), the root of Old High German brehhan too.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded in the second half of the 13th century in the Florentine poet Schiatta Pallavillani, in the sense “to destroy, break up”, and in Dante da Maiano in the sense “to beat down, wear out”.^[10][2] The participle adfrantu “moved” is older, in the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio from the Marche.^[10][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb meant to destroy or crush, and figuratively to beat down or prostrate; it was also used in the curse che t'affranga Dio, “may God break you”.^[10][2] Dante wrote la natura del monte ci affranse / la possa del salir (“the nature of the mountain broke our strength to climb”, Purgatorio 27).^[11][12] The verb stayed in literary use down to Manzoni and Cicognani, but its past participle affranto, “worn out, broken by grief”, became the common word.^[11][2][7] The noun affrangimento, “exhaustion, dejection”, is in Carducci.^[2]

Timeline

• 1250–1300 – Schiatta Pallavillani and Dante da Maiano use afrangere.^[10][2]
• About 1313 – Dante uses affrangere in the Purgatorio.^[2][11]
• Before 1873 – Manzoni uses it in verse.^[2][11]
• Before 1907 – Affrangimento is recorded in Carducci.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To exhaust, wear out, break the strength of: La lunga salita aveva affranto i pellegrini.^[6][13][7]
2. (archaic) To break, shatter.^[14][4][10]

Word family

• affranto
• affrangimento

Related words

• frangere
• infrangere
• Latin frangō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
3. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
5. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 77
6. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse