Origin and history of afraid

afraid(adj.)

"impressed with fear, fearful," early 14c., originally the past participle of the now-obsolete Middle English verb afray "frighten," from Anglo-French afrayer, Old French affrai, effrei, esfrei "disturbance, fright," from esfreer (v.) "to worry, concern, trouble, disturb," from Vulgar Latin *exfridare, a hybrid word meaning literally "to take out of peace."

The first element is from Latin ex "out of" (see ex-). The second is Frankish *frithu "peace," from Proto-Germanic *frithuz "peace, consideration, forbearance" (source also of Old Saxon frithu, Old English friu, Old High German fridu "peace, truce," German Freide "peace"), from a suffixed form of PIE root *pri- "to be friendly, to love."

A rare case of an English adjective that never stands before a noun. Because it was used in the King James Bible, it acquired independent standing and thrived while affray faded, and it chased off the once more common afeared. Colloquial sense in I'm afraid "I regret to say, I suspect" (without implication of fear, as a polite introduction to a correction, admission, etc.) is recorded by 1590s.

Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone [Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes," 1820]

also from early 14c.

Entries linking to afraid

afeared(adj.)

Old English afæred, past participle of now-obsolete afear (Old English afæran) "terrify, cause to fear," from a- (1) + færan (see fear (v.)). Used frequently by Shakespeare, but supplanted in literary English after 1700 by afraid (q.v.), to which it has no connection. It survived in popular speech and colloquial writing.

affray(n.)

c. 1300, "fear, terror, state of alarm produced by a sudden disturbance," from Old French affrai, effrei, esfrei "disturbance, fright," from esfreer (v.) "to worry, concern, trouble, disturb," from Vulgar Latin *exfridare, a hybrid word meaning literally "to take out of peace."

The first element is from Latin ex "out of" (see ex-). The second is Frankish *frithu "peace," from Proto-Germanic *frithuz "peace, consideration, forbearance" (source also of Old Saxon frithu, Old English friðu, Old High German fridu "peace, truce," German Friede "peace"), from a suffixed form of PIE root *pri- "to be friendly, to love."

The meaning "breach of the peace, riotous fight in public" is from late 15c., via the notion of "disturbance causing terror." The French verb also entered Middle English, as afrey "to terrify, frighten" (early 14c.), but it survives almost exclusively in its past participle, afraid (q.v.).