sixth day of the week, Old English frigedæg "Friday, Frigga's day," from Frige, genitive of *Frigu (see Frigg), Germanic goddess of married love. The day name is a West Germanic translation of Latin dies Veneris "day of (the planet) Venus," which itself translated Greek Aphrodites hēmera.
Compare Old Norse frijadagr, Old Frisian frigendei, Middle Dutch vridach, Dutch vrijdag, German Freitag "Friday," and the Latin-derived cognates Old French vendresdi, French vendredi, Spanish viernes. In Germanic religion, Freya (q.v.) corresponds more closely in character to Venus than Frigg does, and some early Icelandic writers used Freyjudagr for "Friday."
A fast-day in the Church, hence Friday face (17c.) for a gloomy countenance. Black Friday as the name for the busy shopping day after U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is said to date from 1960s and perhaps was coined by those who had the job of controlling the crowds, not by the merchants; earlier it was used principally of Fridays when financial markets crashed (1866, 1869, 1873).
masc. proper name, from French Frédéric, from German Friedrich, from Old High German Fridurih, from Proto-Germanic *frithu-rik, literally "peace-rule," from *rik- "rule" (from PIE root *reg- "move in a straight line," with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line," thus "to lead, rule") + *frithu- "peace" (source also of Old English friðu "peace, truce"), from suffixed form of PIE root *pri- "to be friendly, to love."
Related to the first half of Friday and the second half of afraid, also the second element in Siegfried, Godfrey, Geoffrey. Not a common name in medieval England, found mostly in the eastern counties.
prī-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to love." In some languages (notably Germanic and Celtic) it developed derivatives with the sense "free, not in bondage," perhaps via "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves).
It forms all or part of: afraid; affray; filibuster; Frederick; free; freebooter; freedom; friend; Friday; Frigg; Godfrey; Geoffrey; Siegfried; Winfred.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit priyah "own, dear, beloved," priyate "loves;" Old Church Slavonic prijati "to help," prijatelji "friend;" Welsh rhydd "free;" Old English freo "exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will," Gothic frijon "to love," Old English freod "affection, friendship, peace," friga "love," friðu "peace," Old Norse Frigg, name of the wife of Odin, literally "beloved" or "loving."
colloquial shortening of tonight, attested by 1918.
Present-day student notices on bulletin boards, etc., read oftener than not, "Party Friday Nite," "Meeting Tonite," "Kum Tonite," etc. [Louise Pound, "Spelling-Manipulation and Present-Day Advertising," Dialect Notes, 1923]
in Germanic religion, queen of heaven and goddess of married love, wife of Odin; the name is in Old English, but only in compounds such as Frigedæg "Friday," Frigeæfen (what we would call "Thursday evening"). The modern English word is from Old Norse Frigg, a noun use of the feminine of an adjective meaning "beloved, loving," also "wife," from Proto-Germanic *frijjo "beloved, wife," from PIE *priy-a- "beloved," from PIE root *pri- "to love."
