frangere

Forms

frangere (first-person singular present fràngo, first-person singular past historic frànsi, past participle frànto, auxiliary avére or (in the archaic meaning "to break (of the sea)") èssere)^[1] Old Italian also had fragnere, used by Jacopone da Todi and still by Ariosto.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frangō (“to break”).^[4][5][6][1] The verb is Pan-Romance: French freindre, Occitan franher, Catalan franyer, Portuguese franger, Sardinian frànghere and Romanian frânge.^[5][7] The Latin verb is also the source of the learned fragile, frammento and frazione.^[5]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *frang- and a PIE nasal present Proto-Indo-European *bʰr-n-ǵ- (“to break”), the same root as Old High German brehhan (“to break”);^[8][5] Nocentini compares break and German brechen.^[8][5] The long vowel of the participle frāctus is explained by Lachmann's law.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Sicilian poet Giacomo da Lentini, about 1230–1250, with the sense “to break, destroy, smash to pieces”.^[9][4] Prati notes that he already used it of sea waves dashed back.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb widely: to damage, to break someone's resistance or power, to subdue, to weaken, and frangere il cuore for the pains of love; of waves, to break against an obstacle, and of ships, to be wrecked; and to violate a law or break a pact, with frangere le carceri for escaping prison.^[9] The DEI dates “to tame” and “to press” to the 14th century and “to violate a law” to the 15th.^[2] Dante has the pronominal frangersi.^[3]

The present participle became a noun: frangente, a breaking wave, in Brunetto Latini's translation at the end of the 13th century, and a grave or difficult moment by the end of the 14th.^[4] The past participle franto gave frantoio, the olive press, in the first half of the 14th century, and frantume “fragment” in 1657.^[5] Compounds with frangi- such as frangiflutti, a breakwater (1883), are imperative compounds with a plural noun.^[4]

Today the verb is literary or uncommon, except for crushing olives in the press.^[6][1]

Timeline

• c. 1230–1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses frangere.^[9][4]
• Late 13th century – Frangente means a breaking wave.^[4]
• Before 1294 – The participle franto is recorded.^[5]
• First half of the 14th century – Frantoio, the olive press, is recorded.^[5]
• 14th century – Senses “to tame” and “to press” appear.^[2]
• Late 14th century – Frangente means a difficult moment.^[4]
• 15th century – Frangere is used for violating a law.^[2]
• 1657 – Frantume is recorded.^[5]
• 1883 – Frangiflutti appears in a nautical dictionary.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To break, to shatter; of the soil, to break up clods.^[6][10][11]
2. To crush olives in the oil press: Quest'anno si frange presto.^[6][10][1]
3. (figurative, literary) To subdue, to weaken someone's strength or resistance.^[10][11][1]
4. (figurative, literary) To transgress a law or rule; to infringe.^[6][10][1]
5. (figurative) To soften, to mitigate.^[6][10]
6. (figurative, literary) To cleave the sea; to refract light.^[6]
7. (archaic, intransitive, with essere) Of the sea, to break foaming.^[10][1]

Pronominal verb

1. frangersi: of waves, to break against rocks or on the shore; also, literary, to shatter.^[10][11]

Word family

• frangente
• frangibile
• frangiflutti
• frangivento
• frangizolle
• frangitore
• frangitura
• franto
• frantoio
• frantume
• frantumare
• affranto
• infrangibile

Related words

• fratto
• frazione
• infrangere
• rifrangere
• fragile
• frammento
• Latin frango

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1706
3. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 462
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse