Freeze or burn

Here’s a weird one for all you kooky word nuts… while looking up the etymologies of words ending with “eeze” (a typical pastime these days…), i came across an interesting history for the word “freeze“. Today, we associate the word freeze with a withdrawl of heat, creation of an icy state, a favorite weapon of certain super heros/villians like DC Comics “Mister Freeze”.

 

According to Skeat’s Etymology , the word freeze can be traced back to:

• Middle English “fresen“,
• Anglo Saxan “frēosan“,
• equivalents in Icelandic “frjōsa“, Swedish “frysa“, Danish “fryse“, Dutch “vriezen“, German “frieren“.
• An older Germanic form can be found in “freusan“
• which is an extension of the Latin “prūrīre“.
• The Latin stem “pruin” means “hoarfrost”,
• “pruri” means to itch, to tingle, to burn, to crave,
• Latin “prun” means “a glowing charcoal”,
• the origin of which comes from the Indo European root “preus/preu“

and the Indo European root “preus/preu” means “to burn” !