confringo

Forms

cōnfringō (present infinitive cōnfringere, perfect active cōnfrēgī, supine cōnfrāctum); third conjugation^[1] A form cōnfrangō is found in some late texts.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + frangō (“to break”).^[3][2][1] frangō goes back to Proto-Italic *frang- and the nasal present Proto-Indo-European *bʰr-n-ǵ- (“to break”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan first finds it in Livius Andronicus,^[4] who writes that however great a man's strength, the cruel waves will soon break him (cōnfringent importūnae undae).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Plautus uses it of Samian ware that breaks easily, of a door nearly kicked in, and in the passive of a ship that is wrecked;^[3][5][6] breaking a token of guest-friendship (tesseram cōnfringere) meant violating the bond.^[5] Cato and Lucretius use it of breaking objects,^[7] and Petronius of a sky broken up by hail.^[3]

Figuratively it meant to ruin or undo: Plautus has a man who has squandered his property (rem cōnfrēgit),^[6] Titinius “break his pride” (cōnfringe eius superbiam),^[3][5] and Cicero crushing a conspiracy.^[6] Ecclesiastical Latin kept the senses “break in pieces, shatter”.^[8]

Timeline

• 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus uses it of waves that break a man.^[3][4][9]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of pottery, a door and a shipwreck.^[3][6][9]
• end of the 2nd/beginning of the 1st century BC – Titinius uses it of breaking pride.^[3][9]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of crushing a conspiracy.^[6][9]
• before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of a sky broken by hail.^[3][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break in pieces, shatter;^[3][7][8] (passive, of ships) to be wrecked.^[3][7][8]
2. To break up (a surface).^[3]
3. (figurative) To ruin, undo; to squander (property).^[3][6]
4. To break down (pride, resistance), to crush (a conspiracy).^[3][5][6]

Word family

• cōnfrāctiō
• confractus

Related words

• frangō
• fragilis

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de