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AFFRAY,
to frighten; AFRAID,
frightened. (F.,—L.)
Shak. has the verb. Romeo, iii. 5. 33. It occurs early.
Rob. of Brunne, in his translation of P. Langtoft, p. 174, has 'it affraied
the Sarazins' = it frightened the Saracens; and 'ther-of had many affray'
= thereof many had terror, where affray is a sb.—O.F. effreier, effraier, esfreër, to frighten, lit. to freeze with
terror; cf. Provençal esfreidar, which shews a fuller form.—Low
Lat. exfrigidare, a non-occurrent form, though the simple form frigidare
occurs. The prefix es- ( = Lat. ex) may have been added in the
French.—Low
Lat. frigidare, to chill.—Lat.
frigidus, cold, frigid. See effrayer in Brachet, and see
Frigid. ¶ The pp.
affrayed, soon contracted to affrayd or afraid, was in so common use that it became a mere adjective. See,
however, corrections in Errata. [※]
ERRATA AFFRAY.
I print Mr. H. Nicol's excellent remarks in full. 'Affray
(and fray), obs. verb (whence afraid), to frighten; affray
(and fray), subst., a quarrel, fight. In this word it is the
remoter derivation I have to correct, and the correction is not my own, being
due to Prof. G. Paris (Romania, 1878, v. 7, p. 121); the reason of my bringing
it forward is that it explains the Mod. Eng. meaning of the
substantive. (Parenthetically let me remark that afraid, in
spite of its spelling, has not become an adjective, as stated in Mahn's Webster,
but remains a participle; it is not used attributively, and it forms its
absolute superlative with much, not with very.) The
derivation of F. effrayer, to frighten, effroi, fright, given by
Diez, and generally accepted, is from a hypothetical Lat. exfrīgidāre,
and this was corroborated by Provençal esfreidar; the original meaning would
therefore be "to freeze" or "chill." But, as M.
Paris has pointed out, exfrīgidāre, though satisfactory as to meaning, is the
reverse as to sounds. First, frīgidus keeps its
d in all its known
French derivatives, the loss of the unaccented i, by bringing the g in contact
with the d, having (as in roide from rigidum) protected the latter consonant
from weakening and subsequent disappearance. This difficulty is met
by M. Scheler's proposal of exfrīgēre instead of
exfrīgidāre; but this involves
the change, unparalleled in Old F., to the first conjugation of a Lat. verb of
another conjugation, and fails to meet the equally serious second
objection. This is, that the Old French verb at first has the
diphthong ei only in the stem-accented forms, the others having simple e, and
has simple é for Lat. ā in accented inflexions; thus while the 1st sing. pres.
ind. is esfrei, the infinitive is esfreer, with two simple vowels.
This shows that the original stem-vowel was followed by simple d or t, not by
g
or k, with which it would have given the diphthong ei in the stem-syllable
whether accented or unaccented, and the diphthong ié for Latin ā
in accented
terminations; thus O. Fr. freier (Mod. F. frayer, E. fray, to rub) from Lat.
fricāre, has the two diphthongs ei and ié.
Similarly, the Prov. verb
is not esfreidar, but esfredar, with simple e; a fact equally excluding
freit
from frīgidum, which, like F. froid, has the diphthong in compounds whether
accented or unaccented. The only primitive, M. Paris points out,
which satisfies these conditions, is the Late Lat. exfridāre, from Teutonic
friðu, peace; so that the original meaning of the O.F. word is "to put out
of peace," "disturb," "disquiet." This
etymology explains the frequent use of the O.F. participle esfreé with the
meaning "disturbed in mind," "angry," and the still later
use of effrayé de peur to express what effrayé
now does alone. The
primary meaning is better kept in the O.F. subst. esfrei, which often means
"tumult," "noise;" but for its literal preservation we must
look to the Mod. Eng. subst. affray (fray), which means now, as it did when it
was formed, "a breach of the peace." One little point
deserves mention. Friðu, in the Old Teutonic technical sense, like
"the king's peace" in considerably later days, was applied specially
to highways and other public places; and to this day affray, as a law term, is
used only of private fighting in a public place, not of a disturbance inside a
house.'—H. Nicol.
I entirely subscribe to this derivation of affray from Low Lat. exfridare, spelt
exfrediare in the Laws of Hen. I. c. 81. §
4. The Teut.
friðu is represented by A.S.
frið, Icel.
friðr, G.
friede, &c. In Anglo-French we find the sb. affray, Liber Albus,
p. 312; affrei, Stat. of the Realm, i. 185, an. 1332; and note esp. affrai de la
pees, Stat. Realm, i. 258, an 1328. See Frith.
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