different between fracture vs frail

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French fracture, from Latin fract?ra (“a breach, fracture, cleft”), from frangere (“to break”), past participle fractus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *b?reg-, from whence also English break. See fraction. Doublet of fraktur.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?æk.t??/, /?f?æk.tj?/

Noun

fracture (plural fractures)

1. An instance of breaking, a place where something has broken.
2. (medicine) A break in bone or cartilage.
3. (geology) A fault or crack in a rock.

Derived terms

Related terms

• fractal
• fraction
• fragment

Translations

Verb

fracture (third-person singular simple present fractures, present participle fracturing, simple past and past participle fractured)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To break, or cause something to break.
2. (transitive, slang) To amuse (a person) greatly; to split someone's sides.

Translations

Further reading

• fracture in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• fracture in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Etymology

From Middle French fracture, from late Old French fracture, borrowed from Latin fract?ra. Compare the inherited Old French fraiture, and the frainture (influenced by fraindre).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f?ak.ty?/

Noun

fracture f (plural fractures)

1. fracture

Related terms

• fraction

Descendants

• ? Romanian: fractur?

Further reading

• “fracture” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Participle

fr?ct?re

1. vocative masculine singular of fr?ct?rus

Spanish

Verb

fracture

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of fracturar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of fracturar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of fracturar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of fracturar.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French fraile, from Latin fragilis. Cognate to fraction, fracture, and doublet of fragile.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f?e?l/
• Rhymes: -e?l

Adjective

frail (comparative frailer, superlative frailest)

1. Easily broken physically; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish
   • 1831, John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography: Volume 1, Blue-grey Fly-catcher

     Its nest is composed of the frailest materials, and is light and small in proportion to the size of the bird

2. Weak; infirm.
   • 1922, Isaac Rosenberg, Dawn

     O as the soft and frail lights break upon your eyelids

3. Mentally fragile.
4. Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; unchaste.

Derived terms

• frailly
• frailness

Related terms

Translations

Noun

frail (plural frails)

1. A basket made of rushes, used chiefly to hold figs and raisins.
2. The quantity of fruit or other items contained in a frail.
3. A rush for weaving baskets.
4. (dated, slang) A girl.
   • 1931, Cab Calloway / Irving Mills, ‘Minnie the Moocher’:

     She was the roughest, toughest frail, but Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.

   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin 2011, p. 148:

     ‘She's pickin' 'em tonight, right on the nose,’ he said. ‘That tall black-headed frail.’

   • 1941, Preston Sturges, Sullivan's Travels, published in Five Screenplays, ?ISBN, page 77:

     Sullivan, the girl and the butler get to the ground. The girl wears a turtle-neck sweater, a cap slightly sideways, a torn coat, turned-up pants and sneakers.

     SULLIVAN Why don't you go back with the car... You look about as much like a boy as Mae West.

     THE GIRL All right, they'll think I'm your frail.

Verb

frail (third-person singular simple present frails, present participle frailing, simple past and past participle frailed)

1. To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.

References

• frail in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• filar, flair