frio

Forms

frio (feminine fria, masculine plural frios, feminine plural frias, comparable, comparative mais frio, superlative o mais frio or friíssimo or frigidíssimo, diminutive friozinho or friinho)^[1] The Cantigas de Santa Maria spell the feminine ffria as well as fria.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frīgidus (“cold”), written Old Galician-Portuguese frio in the oldest texts.^[3][4][5][1] Latin already had a shortened form without the second syllable: fridus is written on an inscription at Pompeii, and the Portuguese word comes from that form.^[2][6] The noun “cold” is the same word, used as a noun since the 13th century.^[3][4]

The same Latin word is Galician frío, Spanish frío, Asturian fríu, Catalan fred, French froid and Italian freddo.^[7][1] The form Old Spanish frido is recorded in a Spanish document of 931.^[8] The learned frígido is a later borrowing of the same Latin adjective.^[1]

The Latin adjective is formed from the noun frīgus (“cold, frost”), with frīgeō (“to be cold”) beside it.^[9][1] De Vaan traces the noun to *srīgos- and Proto-Indo-European *sriHǵ-o/es- (“frost, bitter cold”), the source also of Ancient Greek ῥῖγος (rhîgos, “cold, frost”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the adjective to 1101, citing Machado.^[3] In Galician-Portuguese the word is common in the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria have agua ffria “cold water” and, as a noun, nen fame nen sede nen frio “neither hunger nor thirst nor cold”, and a knight burning with lust who tornou mais frio ca neve “became colder than snow”.^[2] The Crónica Geral threatens morreredes aqui de fome et de frio “you will die here of hunger and cold”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses are medieval too: the cantiga of the knight uses frio for a man whose desire has gone.^[2] Bluteau (1712–1728) discusses cold as the absence of heat according to the “modern philosophers”, and Morais (1789) adds the cold of the winter and the shivering of a fever.^[11][12] Figueiredo (1899) lists “dull, lifeless, insensitive, cruel” beside the physical senses.^[13]

Brazilian Portuguese gave the adjective the sense “false, forged”, as of a cheque or an invoice, and in Bahia it means “not spicy”.^[3][14] In some Brazilian speech o frio is the cold season, from May to September.^[15] The word passed into Kabuverdianu, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Papiamentu as friu.^[1]

Timeline

• 1101 – Houaiss's first date, citing Machado.^[3]
• 13th century – the noun frio “cold”.^[3][4]
• 13th century, second half – the Cantigas de Santa Maria have agua ffria and por gran frio que fazia.^[2]
• c. 1430 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses the noun frio with the Latin frigus and algor.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau discusses the nature of cold.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records os frios do Inverno and the chill of fevers.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. cold: at a lower temperature than the human body, or seeming so.^[3][18][1]
2. Having a cold climate; where it is usually cold.^[3][18]
3. That keeps or gives out little heat; that has lost its heat, cooled.^[3][19]
4. (figurative) Calm and controlled; reserved, not warm or welcoming.^[3][20]
5. (figurative) Unfeeling, indifferent; cruel.^[3][21][1]
6. (figurative) Without passion or sexual desire.^[3][22]
7. (Brazil) False, forged (of a cheque, account or document).^[3][21]
8. (Bahia) Not seasoned with pepper, not spicy.^[3][14]

Noun

1. Cold: low temperature of the air or of a place.^[3][23][1]
2. The sensation caused by a lack of heat, or by a strong emotion.^[3][19]
3. (figurative) coldness, indifference; lack of spirit.^[3][21]
4. (in the plural) Cold meats and preserved or smoked products.^[3]

Word family

• esfriamento
• esfriar
• fria
• friagem
• frialdade
• frieira
• frieza
• friorento
• friúra

Related words

• frígido
• refrigerar
• Latin frīgidus
• Galician frío

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 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. frio
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. frio
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. frio
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. frio
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. frigidus
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3512
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 959
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. frīgidus
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. frio
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, 638
13. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 635
14. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. frio
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. frio
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. frio
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. frio
18. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. frio
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. frio
20. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4486
21. ^ a b c 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. frio
22. ^ 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. frio
23. ^ 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. frio