friggere

Forms

friggere (first-person singular present frìggo, first-person singular past historic frìssi, past participle frìtto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frīgō (“to roast, parch; to fry”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb first meant cooking without liquid, “to roast”, and only later, as in Isidore, “to fry”.^[5][3][6] Gregory the Great already used it in a transferred sense around 600.^[5]

The word is found all over Romance: French frire, Occitan fregir, Catalan fregir, Spanish freír, Portuguese frigir, Sardinian friere, Friulian frizi and Romanian frige.^[3][7] DELI and Sabatini–Coletti call the Latin verb imitative in origin.^[2][8] Nocentini compares Ancient Greek φρύγω (phrúgō, “to roast, parch”) and explains the choice of the word by the light crackle of meat over a flame.^[3] De Vaan notes that the Greek verb is very close in form and meaning but cannot be matched with the Latin one by the sound laws, so that the Latin verb may be a loan from a third language or an indirect loan from Greek; the lack of a perfect in classical Latin could point the same way.^[9] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the poems of Cecco Angiolieri, from Siena, at the end of the 13th century, and Nocentini also dates the word to the late 13th century.^[10][3] The sense is to cook something by plunging it into very hot vegetable or animal fat.^[10] DELI's first record is later, from the vernacular Crescenzi of about 1350, and GRADIT dates it before 1320.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already stretched the verb to burning and scorching, especially of the skin, and to skin that blisters and sizzles; figuratively the soul could “fry” with agitation, or with gnawing rage and impatient waiting.^[10] The intransitive sense “to bubble and hiss as it boils” is dated by DELI before 1492, in Lorenzo de' Medici.^[2] The Florentine Ricettario set frying against roasting: il friggere si fa o in padella o in tegame (“frying is done in a pan or in a casserole”).^[11]

The derivatives name the products of the pan: fritto (1310), frittella (1345), frittata (1484) and frittura (1499), and in the 20th century the shop and the machine, friggitoria (1901) and friggitrice (1974).^[2][3] The euphemisms andare a farsi friggere and mandare qualcuno a farsi friggere stand for going to ruin and sending someone to the devil.^[12][13]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Cecco Angiolieri uses friggere.^[10]
• 1310 – The past participle fritto is recorded as an adjective.^[2]
• 1345 – Frittella “fritter” is first recorded.^[2]
• c. 1350 – The vernacular Crescenzi has friggere.^[2]
• 1484 – Frittata appears in the Piovano Arlotto.^[2]
• Before 1492 – Lorenzo de' Medici uses the intransitive sense “to sizzle”.^[2]
• 1499 – Frittura appears in the Florentine Ricettario.^[2]
• 1901 – Friggitoria is recorded at Vasto.^[2]
• 1974 – Friggitrice “deep fryer” is first recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To fry: to cook food in boiling oil or other fat: Friggo le melanzane nell'olio di semi.^[4][14][13]
2. (intransitive) Of oil or fat, to bubble and crackle as it boils; by extension to sizzle or hiss, like red-hot metal dipped in water or green wood on the fire.^[4][14][12]
3. (intransitive, figurative) To seethe, to be eaten up inside with anger or impatience: Friggeva di gelosia.^[4][14][8]

Word family

• fritto
• frittata
• frittella
• frittura
• friggitoria
• friggitore
• friggitrice
• soffriggere
• soffritto
• rifriggere
• sfrigolare

Related words

• Latin frīgō
• French frire

Usage notes

Andare a farsi friggere means to come to nothing or go to ruin, and mandare qualcuno a farsi friggere to send someone packing.^[4][12][13] For friggere con l'acqua Devoto–Oli gives “to scrimp”, Gabrielli “to attempt the impossible”.^[14][15] In the Garfagnana a separate dialect verb friggere means “to get goose pimples”; it continues Latin frīgēre “to be cold”, influenced by friggere.^[7][16]

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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1717
6. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
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 Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 258