effringo

Forms

effringō (present infinitive effringere, perfect active effrēgī, supine effrāctum); third conjugation^[1] It is also spelled ecfringō,^[2] and Plautus has exfringō.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + frangō (“to break”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces frangō to Proto-Italic *frang- and the nasal present Proto-Indo-European *bʰr-n-ǵ- (“to break”), comparing Old High German brehhan (“to break”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first quotation is in Plautus' Amphitruo: you nearly broke the door off its hinges.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to break open doors and other barriers, and buildings or containers: Plautus and Terence have doors broken in, Cicero a door and temple doors, Sallust searching hidden places and breaking open locked ones.^[2][5] Horace uses it of a chest, Tacitus of a prison, Suetonius of shops.^[5] Quintilian says some think breaking a thing open more vigorous than opening it.^[5] It also seems to mean to break in pieces, and, intransitively, to break out or burst forth, as of winds bursting from a cloud in Pliny the Elder.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a door broken off its hinges.^[2][5][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of doors broken in.^[5][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of temple doors.^[5][6]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust of breaking open locked places.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of winds bursting out.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break open (doors, buildings, containers); to break off.^[2][5][1]
2. To break in pieces, smash.^[2][5]
3. (intransitive) To break out, burst forth.^[2][5]

Word family

• effractārius
• effractor
• effrāctūra

Related words

• frangō

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 j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de