refrigesco

Forms

refrīgēscō (present infinitive refrīgēscere, perfect active refrīxī); third conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- + frīgēscō (“to grow cold”).^[2][3][1] frīgēscō belongs with frīgus (“cold”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *srīgos- and Proto-Indo-European *sriHǵ-o/es- (“frost, bitter cold”), and compares Ancient Greek ῥῖγος (rhîgos, “cold”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato has it first, of wine that should be poured into the jar when it has cooled.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Literally it is to cool down: Lucretius has a blow growing cold in the air, Ovid a wounded heart, and Columella soil.^[5] Lewis & Short note that the figurative sense is commoner, especially in Cicero: of activities that slow down or come to a halt, and of people who lose their zeal, as Memmius had cooled off after an electoral pact was broken.^[5][2] Quintilian uses it of a speech that loses its force when its pleasures are put off too long.^[2] The TLL records a perfect ⟨refrīguī⟩ beside ⟨refrīxī⟩, and the perfect from Terence on.^[3] Stelten gives “grow cold, abate, lose interest, grow stale, fail”.^[6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato, of wine cooling.^[2][5][7]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, the first perfect forms.^[3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a man losing his zeal.^[2][7]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian, of a speech falling flat.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cool down, grow cold again.^[2][5][1][6]
2. Of an activity, to slow down, come to a halt, abate, flag.^[2][5][1]
3. Of persons, to lose zeal, cool off.^[2][6]
4. Of a speech, to lose its force, fall flat.^[2]

Word family

• refrigescentia

Related words

• frīgēscō
• frīgus
• refrīgerō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 c 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 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 d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de