fratto

Forms

fratto (feminine fratta, masculine plural fratti, feminine plural fratte)^[1] Old Italian also has the Latin spellings fracta and fracti.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin fractus (“broken”), the past participle of frangō (“to break”).^[3][4][5][6] The GDLI calls it a learned word, and Wiktionary a borrowed or semi-learned one beside the inherited participle franto.^[7][1] Devoto notes that the participle is formed regularly from the root without the nasal infix of the present.^[8]

The same participle gave French frais “expenses”, at first the damage caused by breaking something.^[4] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *frang- and to a Proto-Indo-European *bʰreǵ- (“to break”) with a nasal infix in the present; the long vowel of the participle is due to Lachmann's law.^[9] The verb is cognate with Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (brikan) and Old High German brehhan.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Questioni filosofiche, a south-eastern Tuscan text written after 1298, where the word means broken, shattered or cracked.^[2] DELI dates the sense “broken” to Dante, before 1321.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the participle also described a wave broken against an obstacle, something smashed to pulp, a thing divided into parts, an interrupted course, and a person weakened or worn out.^[2] Dante's Paradiso has light shining per fratta nube, “through a broken cloud”.^[7][10]

By the 19th century the plain sense was archaic or literary, and Tommaseo marks the word as obsolete.^[10][7] It survived in arithmetic: DELI dates the sense “fractional” to 1834, and Tommaseo records quantità fratta and fratto as a noun for a fraction.^[3][10] Today fratto is read between the numerator and the denominator of a fraction, meaning “divided by”, and in music canto fratto is a kind of liturgical chant derived from Gregorian chant.^[5][6][11]

Timeline

• After 1298 – First record, in the Questioni filosofiche (south-eastern Tuscany).^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses fratta nube “broken cloud” in the Paradiso.^[3][7]
• 1834 – The mathematical sense “fractional” is recorded.^[3]
• 1861 – Tommaseo marks the plain sense “broken” as obsolete and records quantità fratta in algebra.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) broken, shattered, torn open.^[5][6][12]
2. (mathematics) fractional: numero fratto, a fractional number.^[6][13][12]
3. (mathematics) divided by, read between the terms of a fraction: nove fratto tre fa tre.^[5][11][12]
4. (music) canto fratto: a kind of liturgical chant derived from Gregorian chant.^[6][11]

Word family

• frattaglia
• frattura
• fratturare

Related words

• frangere
• frazione
• franto
• Latin fractus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 190
9. ^ a b 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 Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse