fraco

Forms

fraco (feminine fraca, masculine plural fracos, feminine plural fracas, diminutive fraquinho)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote fraco and flaco, and the Crónica Geral also fraquo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin flaccus (“flabby, drooping”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fraco and Old Galician-Portuguese flaco in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] Wiktionary and García de Diego treat it as a semi-learned word, as Corominas does its Spanish cognate.^[1][6][7] The Latin /fl/ became /fr/, as in other Portuguese words.^[2][1]

The same Latin word is Galician fraco, Spanish flaco, Catalan flac, Old French flac and Italian fiacco.^[8][1] The learned flácido is from the derived Latin adjective flaccidus.^[1][9]

The Latin adjective first meant “lop-eared”.^[10][11] De Vaan sees in its double consonant a mark of the expressive adjectives for bodily defects and finds no etymology.^[10] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with Polish błagi and Lithuanian blogas.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the adjective to the 13th century.^[2][4] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria it describes a worn-out horse, un seu palafré / fraco en que cavalgava “a weak palfrey of his that he rode”, and a traveller indo fraqu' e mui canssado “going weak and very tired”.^[3] The Crónica Troiana has son ja tan flacos que non poden tomar armas “they are now so weak that they cannot take up arms”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the Crónica Geral the word means “weak, without strength, scarce”, and is used both as an adjective and as a noun (os fracos).^[3] Morais (1789) records it for a body, a wall or a voice, for a small or badly supplied army, and for weak reasoning and poor scholars.^[12] Figueiredo (1899) adds the noun senses “a weak spot in a person” and “a liking, a weakness”.^[13]

Today the adjective also describes weak drinks and a run-down battery.^[2][14] In rural Portugal it can mean “thin”, as flaco does in Spanish.^[15][7] In informal Brazilian Portuguese it has meant “consumptive”, and in Bahia “very poor”.^[2][16]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as fraco and flaco.^[2][4]
• 13th century – fraqueza and enfraquecer are recorded.^[4]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of a palafré fraco.^[3]
• c. 1430 – fraco in the Horto do Esposo, the earliest record in the CTA.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin imbecillus “weak”.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais records fraca armada and fraco exército.^[12]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the noun in the sense “a liking, a weakness”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. weak, lacking strength or vigour: Depois da febre, ficou muito fraco.^[2][19][1]
2. Not solid or strong; fragile: uma prateleira fraca.^[2][20]
3. Lacking authority or firmness of will; giving in easily.^[2][19]
4. Poor at something; mediocre: um filme fraco.^[2][21]
5. Inclined to sin, to yield to temptation.^[2][19]
6. Of low intensity: luz fraca, voz fraca.^[2][21]
7. Of drinks, watery, thin: café fraco.^[2][14][1]
8. (Brazil, informal) consumptive.^[2]
9. (Bahia, informal) Very poor.^[2][16]

Noun

1. A weak person; someone without firmness of character.^[2][22]
2. A liking, weakness for something: ter um fraco por doces.^[2][13]
3. A weak point, a flaw.^[2][13]

Word family

• fraqueza
• enfraquecer
• enfraquecimento
• fraquejar
• fraquear
• fraquinho
• ponto fraco

Related words

• flácido
• Latin flaccus
• Galician fraco
• Spanish flaco

Usage notes

A line of Camões often quoted for the word is Que um fraco Rei faz fraca a forte gente “for a weak king makes strong people weak”.^[19] Ponto fraco is a weak point.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fraco
3. ^ a b c d e Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. fraco
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fraco
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. fraco
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. flaccus
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 906
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3343
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. flaco
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. flaccus
11. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. flaccus
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 632
13. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. fraco
14. ^ a b Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. fraco
15. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. fraco
16. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. fraco
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fraco
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fraco
19. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fraco
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fraco
21. ^ a b Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. fraco
22. ^ Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. fraco