frânge

Forms

frânge (third-person singular present frânge, past participle frânt, third-person subjunctive frângă), third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frangō (“to break”).^{[2][3][4][1][5][6]} The Latin verb has a nasal infix in the present and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰreg- (“to break”).^[1][7]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian frãngu and Megleno-Romanian frǫng.^[2][8][9] Its Romance cognates include Italian frangere, Occitan franher, Old French freindre and Portuguese franger.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DÉRom dates the verb from the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where frânge occurs in Psalms 9 and 28.^[6][10] MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), at Acts 21:13.^[3][11] The sense was “to break”, as in the Bucharest Bible of 1688: „Luând Isus pâine, blagoslovind frânse și dete lor” “Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them” (Mark 14:22).^[11]

Semantic evolution

From breaking a hard object in two, the verb came to mean breaking a bone, bending the body sharply at the waist, and, of waves, breaking against the shore.^[4][3] The figurative sense “to overcome, defeat” comes from the same image.^[4][1] Expressions include a-și frânge mâinile “to wring one's hands”, a-și frânge gâtul “to break one's neck, to ruin oneself”, and the folk custom a-i frânge cuiva turta, breaking a flat cake over a child's head on its birthday.^[3][4] A proverb says Limba oase n-are și oase frânge “the tongue has no bones but breaks bones”.^[11]

Ciorănescu forms frântură “fragment, fracture” from the participle frânt with -ură, against Candrea and Densusianu, the REW and the DA, who take it from Latin fractūra.^[2] He also takes înfrânge “to defeat” as a Romanian formation with în-, where Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu and the REW reconstructed a popular Latin *infrangere.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – frânge in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[6][10]
• c. 1551-1558 – frânge in the Psaltirea de la Voroneț.^[12]
• c. 1563-1583 – the Codicele Voronețean, at Acts 21:13.^[3][11]
• 1570 – frâng in Coresi's psalter.^[13]
• c. 1660 – the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss Slavonic “break” with frânge.^[14]
• 1688 – frânse “broke” (bread) in the Bucharest Bible.^[11][15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break something, usually in two, by striking, bending or pressing hard; reflexive, to break.^[4][3][1]
2. To fracture a bone or, by extension, a limb.^[4][3]
3. (reflexive, of waves) To break against the shore or rocks, scattering into small waves.^[4]
4. (figurative) To bend, to bow at the waist.^[4]
5. (figurative) To defeat, to overcome in battle.^[4][1]

Word family

• răsfrânge
• frânt
• frântură
• înfrânge

Related words

• cufrânge
• Aromanian frãngu

Usage notes

Set phrases: a-și frânge gâtul “to die in an accident; to ruin oneself by risky ventures”, a frânge cuiva gâtul “to kill someone”, a-și frânge mâinile “to wring one's hands”, and a-i frânge cuiva inima “to grieve someone deeply”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. frânge
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 941
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 413
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3482
6. ^ a b c Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 472
9. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 177
10. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 28:5
11. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. frânge
12. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 136:12
13. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 74:10
14. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. frînge
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mc 14:22