fragilitas

Forms

fragilitās f (genitive fragilitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin fragilis (“brittle, frail”) + -tās.^[2][3][4] The adjective belongs to frangō (“to break”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *bʰr-n-ǵ- (“to break”), with Germanic cognates such as Old High German brehhan (“to break”).^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero uses it of human frailty: in the Tusculans of fearing the weakness and frailty of mankind, and in the speech for Marcellus of the frailty of our common nature.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense, brittleness, is found in Seneca, of crystal vessels whose fragility raises their price, and in Pliny the Elder, of frankincense judged by its brittleness and of iron made brittle by quenching in water.^[2][7] Figuratively it is frailty, uncertainty or impermanence, as Pliny the Younger has of mortality and Apuleius of human good faith.^[7][2] The TLL notes that it is very frequent in Church writers.^[3] In Christian and Medieval Latin it is above all moral weakness.^[8][9] English fragility and frailty both come from it through Old French, in the 14th century.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of human frailty.^[7][2][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of fragile crystal.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of brittle frankincense and iron.^[7][4]
• mid-14th century – frailty appears in English, through Old French.^[6]
• late 14th century – fragility, first in the sense “moral weakness”.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Brittleness, fragility.^[2][7][1]
2. Frailty, weakness; uncertainty, impermanence.^[2][7][1][9]
3. (Ecclesiastical and Medieval Latin) Moral weakness.^[8]

Related words

• fragilis
• frangō
• English fragility
• English frailty

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson