frais

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fʁɛ/

• audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: feraient, ferais, ferait, fret

Etymology 1

From Middle French frais, from Old French fres, fris (“fresh, new, young, recent”), from Frankish *fresk, *frisk (“fresh”), from Proto-Germanic *friskaz (“fresh”), from Proto-Indo-European *preysk- (“fresh”). Cognate with Old High German frisc (“fresh, young, new”), Old English fersċ (“fresh, pure, sweet”). More at fresh.

Adjective

frais (feminine fraîche or fraiche, masculine plural frais, feminine plural fraîches or fraiches)

1. fresh

   Il est frais mon poisson !

   My fish is fresh!

2. cool (temperature)

   Une brise fraîche souffla soudain sur mon visage ; je frémis doucement.

   Suddenly a cool breeze blew across my face; I shivered a little.

3. recent, something that has just happened

   J’aime écouter les nouvelles fraîches du matin.

   I like listening to the recent news in the morning.

Usage notes

• The traditional feminine form is fraîche, whereas the 1990 spelling reform brought in fraiche

Related terms

• fraîcheur
• frais comme un gardon
• fromage frais

Etymology 2

Oblique plural of (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French fret, frait, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin fractum.

Noun

frais m pl (plural only)

1. cost, charge

Usage notes

This meaning is a plurale tantum in Standard French, though the singular le frais is occasionally encountered, especially in Canadian French.

Related terms

• défrayer

Anagrams

• frisa

Further reading

• “frais”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

---

Irish

Alternative forms

• freis

Pronoun

frais (emphatic frais-sean)

1. third-person singular masculine of fré

---

Middle French

Alternative forms

• fres, frez, freis, fresche, freche

Adjective

frais m (feminine singular fraische, masculine plural frais, feminine plural fraisches)

1. fresh

Descendants

• French: frais m, fraîche f

---

Norman

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French fresc, fresk (“fresh, new, young, recent”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *friskaz (“fresh”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Indo-European *preysk- (“fresh”).

Pronunciation

• Audio (Jersey):

  (file)

Adjective

frais m

1. (France) fresh

Derived terms

• fraîchement (“freshly”)