freca

Forms

freca (present frec, third-person singular freacă, past participle frecat, subjunctive frece), 1st conjugation^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fricō (“to rub”).^{[3][4][2][1][5]} Wiktionary takes the Latin verb as an intensive popular form of friō.^[1]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian frec and Megleno-Romanian frec.^[3][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian fregare, French frayer, Spanish fregar and Portuguese fregar.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Romanian Herodotus of 1645.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is rubbing one body against another, as in kindling fire with two sticks.^[9][2] From it came scrubbing and polishing, massaging the body, and in cooking beating eggs or a paste until smooth.^[2][1]

Colloquial senses grew from rough handling: “to beat”, “to tell off” and, in school slang, “to examine severely”.^[3][2][1] Tiktin quotes reapers who nearly gave a man a rubbing.^[8]

Timeline

• 1645 – first record, in the Romanian Herodotus.^[8]
• 1688 – freacă in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rub; reflexive, to rub against something.^[2][1]
2. To mix a food long and hard until it is smooth and fluffy, as egg whites.^[2][1]
3. To scrub or polish an object.^[2]
4. To massage the body.^[2][3]
5. (colloquial, figurative) To beat; to scold; to make someone work too hard or examine him severely.^[2][1]

Word family

• frecătură
• frecuș
• frecătoare
• frecare

Related words

• frecție
• fricțiune
• Aromanian frec

Usage notes

Colloquial phrases: a freca ridichea cuiva “to give someone a dressing-down”, a-și freca mâinile “to rub one's hands (with pleasure)” and cât te-ai freca la ochi “in the blink of an eye”.^[2][4][8] A freca menta is to idle.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 413
3. ^ 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. freca
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 942
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3501
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 468
7. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 174
8. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. freca
9. ^ Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. freca
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isaia 38:21