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E 0347 ( TO ) FRET , FRETAN, VORACIOUS

English " to fret " and Old English " fretan " are of subsequent Germanic origin . Voracious is of Latin origin.

H 0266 ה ר ב , א ר ב

Concept of root : eating, feeding much

Hebrew word		pronunciation				English meanings
ה ר ב , א ר ב		bar’à, barà				to eat, feed

Related English words				to fret ; Old English: fretan

Comparison between European words and Hebrew
Languages	Words		Pronunciation		English meanings		Similarity in roots
Hebrew	א ר ב ה ר ב		bar’à barà		to eat, feed		b . r . b . r i
Greek	βιβρωσκω root βερη		bibroosko berè		to eat avidly		b . r .
Latin	voro, vorare		voro, vorare		to eat avidly, devour		v .(o) r
Middle Dutch	vreten; - vretten -		vreten; - vretten -		to eat greedily; to feed thoroughly		v r . t
German	fressen		fressen		to eat greedily		f r . s
English	to fret				to fret		f r . t
Old English	fretan				to devour		f r . t

Proto-Semitic BARA --- BĀR- Indo-European

In this entry we find a common root for eating in Greek, Hebrew and Germanic.

Note:

English " to fret " has travelled away quite a bit from its original meaning, the one it still had in Old English, that shared this meaning with the other languages mentioned in this entry .

Note:

Hebrew uses two words with comparable meanings, one with the vowel-stopping Aleph (א) and one with the reading-help Hé (ה). The pronunciation is little different, and in Modern Hebrew the difference is not heard at all. People in Israel give little attention to these vowel-stops. But in the other forms of the past time the difference exists more clearly : " I ate " in the verb with the Aleph is "bar’ati" and in the verb with the Hé "bariti".

As to their messages, the version with Aleph, used only in the causative form, indicates "getting fat". The one with the Hé says "to eat" and in the causative form "to feed", but it has a form " birәià" standing for necessary and solid feeding. And that brings it nearer to the other words of this entry. There are other important derivative meanings for these roots. " To restore ", as in the word " restaurant, which is an eating place, "to recover ( also from disease)" and "to be fat".

Note:

Proto-Semitic. This root is seen in Akkadian "barū = to eat one's fill" and "ushtabarri = to be satiated". Then there is Syriac "א ס ת ב ר, estabar = he ate, fed on". This last word is sometimes considered a loanword from Akkadian, but it is rather different in both meaning and sound.

Proto-Semitic may well have used already the root with final Aleph : "* ב ר א, B R Aleph".

Note:

Dutch has a normal word for "to eat", its sister "eten". The words of this entry have been explained as being composed by the prefix "ver-" plus forms of the briefer verb "eten". But that would not explain why the "e" would have disappeared from "ver". There are very many verbs composed with "ver" in Dutch and the "e" always remains. Besides, there exists a real verb, composed of "ver" + "eten": "vereten" standing for "to overeat".

The word "vretten" is a causative form of "vreten". "Eten" also has an old causative form "etten" . Both causatives have disappeared from modern language.

Note:

Greek. Greek gives one its many examples of an “enthousiastic” word-building. From a root “ B R :” it gets to “bibroosko” by doubling the B, naturally with the help of a vowel (the I ) and adding an infix (or suffix of the root) “sk”. The doubling has an emphasizing task , an infix “sk” may indicate a beginning or speeding up of the action.

Wrongly seen as related is Greek φερβω, pherbo = to feed", especially regarding animals, cattle, as can seen from the noun "φορβα, phorba that stands for "fodder, forage" as well as "meadow" , the grass of which is eaten by cattle. The fact that a medio-passive of "to feed" inevitably says "to eat" does not change the facts. These two words may at the most be very far related, with the "PHER" sounding not unlike the "fre-" in English.

Note:

Latin. Some well-known words, based on this Latin verb "voro, vorare", are "carnivorous" and "herbivorous". There is an opinion that "vorare" comes from am older root "*GW E R-". This seems quite improbable. The idea is based on the existence of Old Indian "girati, gilati", but this has a wider meaning: "to swallow, to eat" and then secondarily also "to devour". It is probably related to the root "G a R-" of entry E 0359 (Hebrew 0382), that refers to the concept of "throat". This concept is served in Indo-European by the two consonant combinations "G . R" and "K . L". Also Avestan "jaraiti has both meanings of "to swallow" and "to eat", with the same root used in "garĕman = throat".

Note:

Proto-Germanic. Germanic often adds a T or S to a root, sometimes emphasizing but not always changing the meaning of it. Here we see that Old English, German and Dutch have done so. If Latin adds a T, it means to intensify the message of a verb.

In older Germanic languages we find Old Saxon and Old English "fretan", Gothic "fraitan", Old High German "frezzan", Often these Germanic words are seen as a composed word, with a prefix "fer" that would have been developed out of "fra" and the existing normal verbs "etan", "ezzan" and "itan" (Gothic). If this were right, the similarity with Hebrew in this entry would not indicate as such a common origin. But some details are not clear. Gothic "fraitan" out of "fra + itan" seems obvious. But Old High German instead of the prefix "fra-" had "fir-" or "far-"and Middle High German "vör, vor-" that can not easily be recognized in "frezzan" and "v(e)rezzen". Perhaps Gothic that has led to the above mentioned supposition, is not too good a guide, as it uses "fret" for "ate"and not a past tense of "itan". And the verb "fraitan" stands for "to digest" , quite different from the other Germanic verbs of this entry.

Thus there remain question marks about a possible common origin, that can not be excluded for the Proto-Germanic form that certainly existed : "*FR E T-".

Note:

Indo-European. The existing hypothesis of "*bhergh-" is interesting, but not too convincing. Old Indian has "bhárvati = to eat, devour, chew", that indicates a "B Ā R-.

There are in various languages words for "to eat, eat avidly" and "to swallow", that use a two consonant combination of "G . R", or as in Old Church Slavonic "zjrĕti" a development out of "G . R", but these are not directly related to the words of this entry.

The probable forms are "*B Ā R-" and "*B ĕ R-".

Note:

B, V and F at times substitute each other in various languages. In Russian many B’s have become W’s and a separate letter has been introduced to express this. In Modern Greek all B’s have become W’s. And in Spanish B and V met midway, becoming identical. We should not wonder if we find Greek and Hebrew B sometmes corresponding with Dutch V.

Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 15/11/2012 at 16.24.21