Etymologically
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perfringo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [pɛrˈfrɪŋ.ɡoː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [perˈfriŋ.ɡo][1]

Forms

perfringō (present infinitive perfringere, perfect active perfrēgī, supine perfrāctum); third conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- + frangō (“to break”).[2][1][3] De Vaan traces ⟨frangō⟩ to Proto-Italic *frang- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰr-n-ǵ- (“to break”), a nasal present, cognate with Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (brikan, “to break”) and Old High German brehhan.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis and Short cite Plautus' braggart soldier, told that with his fist he broke an elephant's arm;[5] the TLL lists it from the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero and Lucretius onwards.[3]

Semantic evolution

It means “to break, shatter”, as Cicero's wind that will break tall masts, and figuratively to ruin a person or to smash laws and customs: the Rhetorica ad Herennium has someone breaking up other people's houses and families.[2][5] It is also “to break through, force a way through”, as Cicero's man who always broke through walls by force and courage, and “to break into” a city.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “shatter, break through”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a broken limb.[5][7]
  • 86/82 BC – the Rhetorica ad Herennium of ruining households.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of breaking masts and walls.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To break, shatter, fracture.[2][5][1][6]
  2. To ruin a person; to violate laws or customs.[2][1]
  3. To break through, force a way through; to break into.[2][1][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de