Today's Bit of Forgotten English

[the_gneech]

frigerifick particles

In philosophy, small particles that are of a matter essentially cold.

--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749

Feast Day of St. Valerian, who has long been invoked for protection from cold and snow. The adjective frigerifick was borrowed directly from Latin, perhaps as late as the mid-1600s, and denoted cooling, freezing, or cold-producing. It was originally used in scientific writings but was later adapted for general use. The term frigidarium (the cooling-room adjacent to a Roman bath, alongside the temperate tepidarium and hot caldarium) was borrowed into English and employed, sometimes derogatorily, to describe cold, damp rooms. In the sixteenth century the related Latin-based verb fridgefact denoted the action of cooling.