frisk means lively; brisk. It carries an Arena rating of 1626, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, frisk ranks #9,455 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
frisk is pronounced /fɹɪsk/.
Why “frisk” is a great word
To move about playfully and energetically, or to search a person by running one's hands over their clothing. From Middle English frisk ('lively'), from Middle French frisque ('lively, brisk'), likely of Germanic origin from Proto-Germanic *friskaz ('fresh'), making it a doublet of 'fresh' and 'fresco'. An alternative suggested etymology traces it through Old French fricque/frique ('smart, playful') from a Gothic root meaning 'greedy, hungry'. Unlike a procedural 'pat down' or an innocent 'gambol,' to frisk inhabits a mercurial middle ground where motion and motive blur. It is the spring-loaded step of a puppy on new grass, the quick, practiced hands of a guard at a checkpoint, and the same word containing both the skip of freedom and the press of authority—a single lexical coin with joy stamped on one face and suspicion on the other.
Etymology
From Middle English frisk (“lively, frisky”), from Middle French frisque (“lively, jolly, blithe, fine, spruce, gay”), of Germanic origin, perhaps from Middle Dutch frisc (“fresh”) or Old High German frisc (“fresh”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *friskaz (“fresh”). Cognate with Icelandic frískur (“frisky, fresh”). Doublet of fresco and fresh. More at fresh. Alternative etymology derives frisk from an alteration (due to Old French fresche (“fresh”)) of Old French fricque, frique (“smart, strong, playful, bright”), from Gothic *𐍆𐍂𐌹𐌺𐍃 (*friks, “greedy, hungry”), from Proto-Germanic *frekaz, *frakaz (“greedy, active”), from Proto-Indo-European *preg- (“greedy, fierce”). Cognate with Middle Dutch vrec (“greedy, avaricious”), German frech (“insolent”), Old English frec (“greedy, eager, bo
adj
- Lively; brisk.e.g.“Her hands must hide her mouth if she but smile; Fain would she seem all frisk and frolic still” — 1597, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, in Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Three Bookes, of Tooth-lesse Satyrs. […], London: […] Thomas Creede, for Robert Dexter, →OCLC:
noun
- A little playful skip or leap; a brisk and lively movement.
- The act of frisking, of searching for something by feeling someone's body.e.g.“The customs officer gave me a frisk after I went through the metal detector.”
verb
- To frolic, gambol, skip, dance, leap.
- To search (someone) by feeling their body and clothing.e.g.“The police frisked the suspiciously-acting individual and found a knife as well as a bag of marijuana.”
- To search (a place).e.g.“Furniture was tipped over and drawers pulled out. Someone had obviously frisked the joint before we arrived.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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