frigero

Forms

frīgerō (present infinitive frīgerāre, perfect active frīgerāvī, supine frīgerātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

According to the OLD it is from Latin frīgus (“cold”) with the first-conjugation verb ending.^[2] The TLL thinks it was rather drawn from refrīgerō (“to cool down”), itself a derivative of frīgus.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in Catullus (poem 61.30), where the spring Aganippe is described as cooling (frigerans) the caves it waters.^[3][5][6]

Semantic evolution

It is a very rare word.^[5] After Catullus it reappears in the medical writer Caelius Aurelianus, who speaks of cooling swellings with rose oil, cooling the air with fans, and of cooling remedies (frigerantia medicamenta).^[3] It is sometimes spelled frigor-, and some manuscripts of Columella wrongly have it.^[3]

Timeline

• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses the participle frigerans of a cooling spring.^[3][6]
• 5th century AD – Caelius Aurelianus uses it of cooling the body and of cooling medicines.^[3][5][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make cool, to cool, refresh with coolness.^[2][5]
2. (medicine) To cool (a part of the body, the air); frigerantia, cooling remedies.^[3]

Word family

• perfrigero

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de