refringo

Forms

refringō (present infinitive refringere, perfect active refrēgī, supine refrāctum); third conjugation^[1] A recomposed form refrangō appears in old manuscripts of the Vulgate and of Augustine.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- + frangō (“to break”).^[3][1][2] De Vaan traces frangō to Proto-Italic *frang- and the nasal present Proto-Indo-European *bʰr-n-ǵ- (“to break”), comparing Old High German brehhan (“to break”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first quotations are in Plautus, who has someone break open all the storerooms inside and unlock the cupboard,^[3][5] and in Ennius' Annals, where Discord breaks open the iron-bound doorposts and gates of war.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to break open doors and gates by force, or to force open a room or enclosure: Caesar and Livy use it in the same way.^[3][5] It is also to break a thing by pressing against it, as Catullus' wandering foot breaking the brushwood and Columella's clod broken up into dust.^[3] Of attacking forces it is to break or repel them: Horace says the house of Priam does not break the warlike Achaeans with Hector's might, and Caesar posts cavalry to break the force of a river.^[3] Church Latin glosses it to break up or open.^[6] In modern scientific Latin it means to refract light.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of storerooms broken open.^[3][7]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of the gates of war.^[3][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of breaking the force of a river.^[3][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of breaking an attacking army.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break open (doors, gates); to force open (a room, enclosure).^[3][5][1][6]
2. To break by pressure, break back; to break up.^[3]
3. To break or repel (an attacking force, or a physical force such as a current).^[3]
4. (New Latin, physics) To refract.^[1]

Word family

• refractus

Related words

• frangō
• perfringō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 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