freddo

Forms

freddo (feminine fredda, masculine plural freddi, feminine plural fredde, superlative freddissimo, diminutive freddìno or freddolìno (adjective or noun) or freddùccio, pejorative freddàccio)^[1] Old Italian forms include fredo, fregio, freido and fregdo in the north, and friddu in the south.^[2] Lucchese has the half-learned friggido.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin frigdus, the syncopated Late Latin form of Latin frīgidus (“cold”).^[5][1][3][6] The short form is attested as “fricda” in the Appendix Probi, which corrects it to “frigida”, and as “fridus” in an inscription at Pompeii.^[7][1] Frigido is the later learned doublet.^[5][1]

The Romance forms point to a short “ĭ”.^[5][8] DELI, DEI, the GDLI and Meyer-Lübke explain it by the influence of rigidus (“stiff”);^[5][3][6][4] Nocentini sees a prosodic change of Romance in words stressed on the antepenultimate.^[8] Devoto notes that the early loss of the inner vowel kept the “g”, which survives in the doubled consonant, while in Latin digitus it was lost first and gave dito.^[9]

The word is found throughout Romance except Romanian: French froid, Occitan freg, Friulian fred, Romansh fraid and Sardinian frittu.^[8][3][4] Spanish frío and Portuguese frio may continue the long “ī” of the classical form, though Meyer-Lübke notes that Old Spanish had “fredo”.^[8][4]

Frīgidus is formed from frīgeō (“to be cold”) and frīgus (“cold, frost”).^[1][10] “Frīgus” goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sríHgos and matches Ancient Greek ῥῖγος (rhîgos, “frost, shivering”).^[8][1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Genoese Contrasto of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, about 1190, with the sense “at a much lower temperature than the one who feels it”.^[2] DELI dates the adjective to before 1292 (Bono Giamboni) and the noun “absence of heat” to before 1294 (Brunetto Latini).^[5] Giamboni tells of a man who bathed sweating in the fiume freddissimo Cydnus and froze.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In medieval science freddo was one of the four primary qualities of matter, beside hot, wet and dry, and in humoral medicine the quality of an organ or temperament.^[2] The figurative sense “not carried away by passion” is recorded before 1342 in Domenico Cavalca;^[5][12] Boccaccio and Petrarch also used it for “sluggish”.^[5][12] The noun names the sensation of cold from 1304 (Giordano da Pisa) and the winter season before 1313.^[5]

Many fixed phrases followed: sangue freddo “composure”, a freddo “without preparation”, sudare freddo, and doccia fredda, which Panzini in 1905 explained as a figure from the calming cold shower of medicine.^[5][13][14] The derivative freddura meant “cold” in the 13th century and in the Baroque age came to mean a cold, laboured witticism, today a pun.^[5] freddare “to cool” took the sense “to kill on the spot” before 1665, in Lorenzo Lippi.^[5]

Timeline

• About 1190 – Freddo in the Genoese Contrasto of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses the adjective.^[5]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses the noun “absence of heat”.^[5]
• 1304 – Giordano da Pisa uses the noun for the sensation of cold.^[5]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it for “unmoved by passion”.^[5]
• Before 1635 – Alessandro Tassoni uses freddura for a witticism.^[5]
• Before 1665 – Lorenzo Lippi uses freddare for “kill”.^[5]
• 1905 – Panzini explains doccia fredda.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. cold, at a low temperature or lower than that of the surroundings or the body: Ho le mani fredde.^{[13][15][16][1]}
2. Of weather or a place: cold: Quest'anno l'inverno è stato molto freddo.^[13][15]
3. Of food or drink: not heated, served cold: una cena fredda.^[13][16][14]
4. (sports) Of muscles or an athlete: not yet warmed up.^[13]
5. (figurative) Unmoved by emotion, detached, unfriendly; also calm, clear-headed: Ci ha accolti con un sorriso freddo.^{[13][16][14][17]}

Noun

1. Cold, low temperature; the sensation it causes: Stanotte fa un gran freddo.^[13][16][1]
2. The cold season, winter: I primi freddi sono arrivati presto.^[5][17]

Word family

• freddare
• freddezza
• freddoloso
• freddura
• raffreddare
• raffreddore
• infreddare
• infreddolire
• rifreddo
• semifreddo
• freddamente

Related words

• frigido
• Latin frīgidus
• French froid

Usage notes

Avere freddo is “to be cold” (of a person), fare freddo “to be cold” (of the weather).^[16] A sangue freddo means “in cold blood”, and animali a sangue freddo are cold-blooded animals.^[13][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1712
4. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 322
12. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
13. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org