fraile

English

Adjective

fraile

1. Obsolete spelling of frail.

Anagrams

• A-lifer, failer, farlie, ferial

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfraj.le/
• Rhymes: -ajle
• Hyphenation: frài‧le

Adjective

fraile (plural fraili)

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of frale

Anagrams

• Falier, ferali, filare, filerà, refila

Old French

Alternative forms

• frale, fraelle, fraille, fraisle, freille, frelle, fresle

Etymology

Inherited from Latin fragilis. Doublet of fragile. The ⟨s⟩ in the byforms fraisle, fresle is not expected (the development of fraise etc. being due to hiatus, which does not apply here). Probably it was influenced by graisle (“slim”) at the time when preconsonantal /s/ was becoming weak.

Adjective

fraile m (oblique and nominative feminine singular fraile)

1. fragile; frail
   • 11th century, La Vie de Saint Alexis

     Vielz est e frailes, tot s’en vait declinant

     It is old and frail, everything keeps declining

Declension

	Case	masculine	feminine	neuter
singular	subject	frailes	fraile	fraile
	oblique	fraile			fraile	fraile
plural	subject	fraile	frailes		fraile
	oblique	frailes			frailes	fraile

Descendants

• Middle French: fresle
  • French: frêle
• → Middle English: fraill
  • English: frail

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Occitan fraire, from Latin frater.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɾaile/ [ˈfɾai̯.le]
• Rhymes: -aile
• Syllabification: frai‧le

Noun

fraile m (plural frailes)

1. friar

   Synonym: fray

Derived terms

• codo de fraile
• docena del fraile
• frailecillo

Further reading

• “fraile”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10