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confragosus

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word confragosus

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 250–184 BC, Plautus
Ultimate origin
Latin frangō

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kõː.fraˈɡoː.sʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [koɱ.fraˈɡɔː.s̬us][1]

Forms

cōnfragōsus (feminine cōnfragōsa, neuter cōnfragōsum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin con- + fragōsus (“brittle, rugged”),[2][3][1] from frangō (“to break”).[1][4] De Vaan traces frangō to Proto-Italic *frang- and Proto-Indo-European *bhr-n-ǵ- (“to break”).[4] Lewis and Short compare cōnfragus, and the TLL cōnfringō (“to break in pieces”).[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Plautus, figuratively: in the Cistellaria (614) a speaker raises a hard question, how the earlier can be later and the later earlier.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Plautus also calls hard terms confragōsae in the Menaechmi.[5][7] The literal sense, of rough or broken ground, is in Varro (land too uneven to plough), Columella (stony ground) and repeatedly in Livy, of places and roads; the neuter, singular and plural, became a noun for rough country.[2][5][6] Seneca calls the road to high office rough,[6] and Quintilian uses it of harsh names and verses and of rugged arguments.[5]

Christian writers took over the image of the rough road: Lactantius says the way of virtue is steep and rough at first.[6] The adverb confragōsē “roughly” is found in Marius Victorinus.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a hard question.[2][8]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of land too rough to plough.[2][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it often of rough places and roads.[5][6]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca calls the road to high office rough.[6]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian uses it of harsh words and verses.[5]
  • c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius calls the path of virtue rough at first.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (of ground) Uneven, rough, broken;[2][5] (neuter as noun) rough ground.[2][5]
  2. Hard, difficult;[2] (neuter as noun) a difficulty.[2]
  3. (of style) Harsh, rugged.[5]

Word family

  • confragōsē

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry

“Confragosus.” Etymologically, 25 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/confragosus. Accessed 25 Oct. 2026.

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