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Origin and history of Frigg

Frigg

in Germanic religion, queen of heaven and goddess of married love, wife of Odin; the name is in Old English, but only in compounds such as Frigedæg "Friday," Frigeæfen (what we would call "Thursday evening"). The modern English word is from Old Norse Frigg, a noun use of the feminine of an adjective meaning "beloved, loving," also "wife," from Proto-Germanic *frijjo "beloved, wife," from PIE *priy-a- "beloved," from PIE root *pri- "to love."

Entries linking to Frigg

Friday(n.)

sixth day of the week, Old English frigedæg "Friday, Frigga's day," from Frige, genitive of *Frigu (see Frigg), Germanic goddess of married love. The day name is a West Germanic translation of Latin dies Veneris "day of (the planet) Venus," which itself translated Greek Aphrodites hēmera.

Compare Old Norse frijadagr, Old Frisian frigendei, Middle Dutch vridach, Dutch vrijdag, German Freitag "Friday," and the Latin-derived cognates Old French vendresdi, French vendredi, Spanish viernes. In Germanic religion, Freya (q.v.) corresponds more closely in character to Venus than Frigg does, and some early Icelandic writers used Freyjudagr for "Friday."

A fast-day in the Church, hence Friday face (17c.) for a gloomy countenance.

*pri-

prī-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to love." In some languages (notably Germanic and Celtic) it developed derivatives with the sense "free, not in bondage," perhaps via "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves).

It might form all or part of: afraid; affray; filibuster; Frederick; free; freebooter; freedom; friend; Friday; Frigg; Godfrey; Geoffrey; Siegfried; Winfred.

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit priyah "own, dear, beloved," priyate "loves;" Old Church Slavonic prijati "to help," prijatelji "friend;" Welsh rhydd "free;" Old English freo "exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will," Gothic frijon "to love," Old English freod "affection, friendship, peace," friga "love," friðu "peace," Old Norse Frigg, name of the wife of Odin, literally "beloved" or "loving."

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    Trends of Frigg

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    free
    Old Norse friðr "peace, personal security; love, friendship," German Friede "peace;" Old English freo "wife;" Old Norse Frigg...
    hamartia
    "tragic flaw," Greek, literally "fault, failure, guilt, sin" from hamartanein "to fail of one's purpose; to err, sin," originally "to miss the mark," from PIE *hemert- "to miss, fail." "The aspiration must be analogical. The word has no known cognates, but the reconstructed root
    Spam
    proprietary name registered by Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in U.S., 1937; probably a conflation of spiced ham. Soon extended to other kinds of canned meat. Figurative of what is bland or unexciting by 1959. In the sense of "internet junk mail" it was coined by Usenet users some time
    statistics
    1770, "science dealing with data about the condition of a state or community" [Barnhart], from German Statistik, popularized and perhaps coined by German political scientist Gottfried Achenwall (1719-1772) in his "Vorbereitung zur Staatswissenschaft" (1748), from Modern Latin sta
    pound
    [fundamental unit of weight] Old English pund "pound" (in weight or money), also "pint," from Proto-Germanic *punda- "pound" as a measure of weight (source of Gothic pund, Old High German phunt, German Pfund, Middle Dutch pont, Old Frisian and Old Norse pund), an early borrowing
    economy
    1530s, "household management," from Latin oeconomia (source of French économie, Spanish economia, German Ökonomie, etc.), from Greek oikonomia "household management, thrift," from oikonomos "manager, steward," from oikos "house, abode, dwelling" (cognate with Latin vicus "distric
    paraphernalia
    1650s, in law, "a woman's property besides her dowry," from Medieval Latin paraphernalia (short for paraphernalia bona "paraphernal goods"), neuter plural of paraphernalis (adj.), from Late Latin parapherna, in Roman law "a woman's property besides her dowry," from Greek parapher
    vacuum
    1540s, "emptiness of space," from Latin vacuum "an empty space, vacant place, a void," noun use of neuter of vacuus "empty, unoccupied, devoid of," figuratively "free, unoccupied," from Proto-Italic *wakowos, related to the source of Latin  vacare "to be empty" (from PIE *wa
    quarantine
    1660s, "period a ship suspected of carrying contagious disease is kept in isolation," from Italian quaranta giorni, literally "space of forty days," from quaranta "forty," from Latin quadraginta "forty" (related to quattuor "four," from PIE root *kwetwer- "four"). The name is fro
    lingerie
    1835 (but not in widespread use until 1852), "linen underwear, especially as made for women," from French lingerie "linen goods, things made of linen," originally "laundry room, linen warehouse, linen shop, linen market" (15c.), also the name of a street in Paris, from linger "a

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