frigo

Forms

frīgō (present infinitive frīgere, perfect active frīxī, supine frīctum or frīxum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2] It is very close in form and meaning to Ancient Greek φρύγω (phrúgō, “to roast”), but the two cannot be matched by sound laws, so de Vaan suggests a loanword from a third language, or one borrowed indirectly from the Greek verb;^[2] Giacomelli takes it as a Greek loanword, not of the oldest layer.^[2] The lack of a perfect in classical Latin, where ⟨frīxī⟩ is found only in the grammarians, could also point to a loan.^[2]

The TLL and Georges compare Sanskrit भृज्जति (bhṛjjati, “to roast”),^[3][4] and Wiktionary a root Proto-Indo-European *bʰer(H)-g- (“to roast, grill, fry”), though the Latin form would need a different root.^[1] Umbrian frehtu, an Umbrian word, may belong here.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it from Plautus on,^[2] who has frictae nuces, “roasted nuts”;^[5][6] Cato also has roasting salt.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

It means to roast or parch, and to fry,^[7][5][1] mostly of grain, pulses and nuts: Varro has roasted wheat, Celsus roasted millet, Horace roasted chickpeas and nuts, and Pliny the Elder barley roasted before it is ground.^[5] The perfect participle frictus is the commonest form,^[7] and Plautus jokes tam frictum ego illum reddam quam frictumst cicer, “I'll make him as roasted as a roasted chickpea”.^[5]

Later Latin also has the participle frīxus, in Apicius, Vegetius, Sidonius and the Vulgate, where the perfect frīxī appears too.^[4][5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has roasted nuts and chickpeas.^[5][2][8]
• 234–149 BC – Cato has roasting salt.^[5][6][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro has roasted wheat.^[5][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder has barley roasted and then ground.^[5][8]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate has the perfect frīxī and the participle frīxus.^[4][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To roast, parch, fry.^[7][5][1]

Word family

• frixura
• refrīgō
• frīctus
• frīxus

Usage notes

It should not be confused with frīgeō “to be cold” and frīgēscō.^[6] The OLD has two rare verbs of the same spelling: frigō “to squeal”, of a child, found once in Afranius and connected with friguttiō,^[7][5][4] and frigō “to raise”, which Nonius equates with ērigō and which may go back to a misreading of that verb.^[7][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de