fregare

Forms

fregare (first-person singular present frégo, first-person singular past historic fregài, past participle fregàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian frecare, Old Italian fregar and Old Italian frecà, the forms in ⟨-c-⟩ mostly southern and central.^[2] The word is Venetian fregar in Venetian and Neapolitan fregà in Neapolitan, while Sicilian fricari keeps the ⟨c⟩.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fricāre (“to rub, chafe”).^[3][4][5][1] The voicing of the ⟨c⟩ between vowels to ⟨g⟩ is a northern development, so the Tuscan word probably came from the north;^[6][7][1] Wiktionary gives an earlier *frecare.^[6][7][1] The same verb is French frayer, Occitan fregar, Catalan fregar, Spanish fregar, Portuguese fregar, Logudorese frigare and Romanian freca.^[4][8] In the south it was crossed with Latin strigilis (“strigil, scraper”), giving forms such as Portuguese estregar.^[7]

The Latin verb itself is of uncertain origin.^[3][9] De Vaan takes it, like Nocentini, as a derivative of friō (“to crumble”), built on an adjective *frikos, and traces that verb to Proto-Indo-European *bʰriH- (“to cut”), with relatives in Sanskrit and Old Church Slavonic words for cutting and shaving.^[10][4][1] Nocentini instead sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *mr̥- (“to crumble”), while Devoto found no clear relatives outside Latin.^[4][6]

The vulgar sense “to have sex with” was already Latin: Pompeian graffiti have fricare with the object cunnum.^[4] From it came, by an easy shift, the common sense “to cheat”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the late 12th century.^[2] The sense is the physical one: to move one surface repeatedly over another while pressing on it, as Cecco Angiolieri writes to Dante (before 1313) “s'eo cimo 'l panno, tu vi freghi 'l cardo” (if I shear the cloth, you rub the teasel on it).^[2][3][11]

Semantic evolution

Rubbing remained the main sense for centuries: Dante has Sordello draw a line with his finger in the dust (in terra fregò il dito), and medieval treatises advise rubbing wounds and enamels.^[12][11] Already in Old Italian the verb could mean taking something by deceit.^[2] DELI dates “to cheat, swindle” to Sercambi's novellas (about 1400), “to possess sexually” to Pietro Aretino (1536) and “to steal” to Bronzino (before 1573).^[3] A Treviso document of 1313 has fregator for a sodomite.^[7]

The pronominal fregarsene, “not to care at all”, is Roman in origin: it is found in Belli's sonnets (before 1863) and entered the dictionaries with Panzini in 1905, who compared French se ficher.^[3] The motto me ne frego was put by D'Annunzio on the pennant of his machine-gunners at Fiume in a proclamation of 11 January 1920, and was later taken up by the Fascists.^[3] The noun fregola, the excitement of animals in the mating season, is said to be named from fish rubbing themselves on stones when they spawn.^[3][13]

In modern Italian the senses “to cheat”, “to steal” and “to fail (someone in an exam)” are popular or colloquial, and the sexual sense is vulgar.^[5][14][9]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur has the verb.^[2]
• Before 1313 – Cecco Angiolieri uses fregare “to rub”.^[3][5]
• 1313 – Fregator “sodomite” is recorded at Treviso.^[7]
• About 1400 – Sercambi uses it for “to cheat”.^[3]
• 1433 – The noun frego, a stroke or scrawl, is recorded.^[3]
• Before 1494 – Poliziano has fregola for the mating urge of animals.^[3]
• 1536 – Pietro Aretino uses it for “to possess sexually”.^[3]
• Before 1573 – Bronzino uses it for “to steal”.^[3]
• Before 1863 – Belli's Roman sonnets have fregarsene “not to care”.^[3]
• 1905 – Panzini's dictionary records fregarsene.^[3]
• Before 1915 – Fregatura “swindle” is recorded in Renato Serra.^[3]
• 1920 – D'Annunzio makes me ne frego a motto at Fiume.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rub something hard, especially to clean or polish it: Ho fregato la padella finché non è tornata lucida.^[5][15][16]
2. To rub or massage a part of the body; pronominal fregarsi: fregarsi le mani, to rub one's hands, from cold or with satisfaction, and fregarsi gli occhi, to rub one's eyes.^[5][15][9]
3. To scrape or brush something against a surface: fregare un cerino sulla scatola, to strike a match on the box.^[5][15]
4. (colloquial) To cheat, swindle or trick someone: Quel meccanico ci ha fregati sul prezzo.^{[5][15][9][1]}
5. (colloquial) To beat someone, especially by unfair means; to fail someone in an exam.^[5][15][14]
6. (colloquial) To steal, to nick: Qualcuno mi ha fregato la bicicletta.^{[5][14][9][1]}
7. (vulgar) To have sex with someone.^[5][16][1]
8. (rare) To mark or cross out with a stroke of the pen.^[5][9][16]
9. (colloquial) fregarsene and impersonal fregare in negative or rhetorical sentences: not to care at all about something, as in me ne frego and chi se ne frega?.^[14][9][16]

Word family

• fregarsene
• fregatura
• fregata
• frego
• fregola
• fregagione
• fregamento
• sfregare
• sfregamento
• soffregare

Related words

• fregarsi
• frizione
• Latin fricō
• Spanish fregar

Usage notes

The impersonal use is very common in speech: non me ne frega niente and che te ne frega? (what's it to you?) are the colloquial counterparts of non m'importa and che t'importa?.^[14][16] The written form chissenefrega is also found.^[9]

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 e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1712
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
14. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana