freak
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: frēk
ipa: /fɹiːk/
rhymes: -iːk
homophone: phreak
Forms: form: freaks
form: freake
form: freik
form: freke
form: frick
Etymology: First appears c. 1567. The sense "sudden change of mind, a whim" is of uncertain origin. Probably from a dialectal word related to Middle English frekynge (“capricious behavior; whims”) and Middle English friken, frikien (“to move briskly or nimbly”), from Old English frician (“to leap, dance”), or Middle English frek (“insolent, daring”), from Old English frec (“desirous, greedy, eager, bold, daring”), from Proto-West Germanic *frek, from Proto-Germanic *frekaz, *frakaz (“hard, efficient, greedy, bold, audacious”) (in which case, it would be related to the noun under Etymology 2). Compare Old High German freh (“eager”), Old English frēcne (“dangerous”).
For the meaning development compare Russian заско́к (zaskók) akin to скок (skok), скака́ть (skakátʹ).
Senses: examples: text: The two-headed calf was a freak.
text: freak of nature, freak of the weather, freak of the imagination
text: [H]aving a dinner-party at his rooms to entertain some friends from London, nothing would satisfy Mr. Foker but painting Mr. Buck’s door vermilion, in which freak he was caught by the proctors …
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 19, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
text: And I may answer with another question. Why is a two-headed calf? And my own answer to this is that it is a freak.
ref: 1907, Jack London, Before Adam, page 8:
text: There may be good points about a freak reel, but because it is a freak it will stand little show of even a fair try-out
ref: 1920, Onnie Warren Smith, Casting tackle and methods, page 67:
text: It is a freak that people talk about when they see it. Not everyone calls it by the right name, and few people know how it gets to be what it is. This freak is hail.
ref: 1938, Marian E. Baer, The wonders of water:
synonyms: word: anomaly
word: outlier
word: aberrant
word: abnormality
word: anomaly
word: deviance
word: deviant
word: farlie
word: freak
word: irregularity
word: odd fish
word: oddity
word: outlier
word: peculiarity
word: queerness
word: rarity
word: rum
word: strange fish
word: strangeness
word: unusualness
word: weirdness
qualifier: dated outside certain expressions
glosses: Someone or something that is markedly unusual or unpredictable.
examples: text: When long-haired, outlandishly dressed, drug-using hippies pilgrimaged to Haight-Ashbury in the early 1960s, they were quickly dubbed freaks; the pejorative appellation was both obvious and intended. It was not long before freak had become practically synonymous with hippie. It seems, however, that with the acceptance of long hair, the appearance and popularity of some rather bizarre fashions, and the emphasis placed upon "doing one's own thing," freak is no longer burdened with all of its former derogatory associations. Instead […] the word is beginning to acquire a quality which is favorable, glamorous, and somehow even admirable.
ref: [1969, Paul A. Eschholz, “Freak compounds for 'argot freaks'”, in American Speech, volume 44, number 4, →DOI, pages 306–307:
synonyms: longhair
tree hugger
glosses: A hippie.
examples: text: Smith and Sturges [June 1969] note in their study of the San Francisco drug scene that freak means "anyone addicted to drugs."
ref: [1969, Paul A. Eschholz, “Freak compounds for "argot freaks"”, in American Speech, volume 44, number 4, →DOI, pages 306–307:
synonyms: word: druggie
word: user
word: addict
word: abuser
word: fiend
word: slave
word: wastoid
glosses: A drug addict.
examples: text: Gentrification often starts with the artists, revolutionaries, freaks, transfolks, and queers (what I would call my people) moving into poor neighborhoods inhabited by people of color.
ref: 2014, Inga Muscio, Autobiography of a Blue-eyed Devil:
synonyms: word: odd duck
word: weirdo
word: bizarro
word: coot
word: crackpot
word: crank
raw_tags: in US
word: eccentric
word: freak
word: glaik
word: hard case
word: kook
word: live one
word: nutbag
word: nutbar
word: nutcase
word: nutter
word: oddball
word: oddity
word: odd bod
word: odd duck
word: odd fish
word: queerdo
word: queer fish
word: rum
word: strange bird
word: strange fish
word: strangeling
word: wack
word: wacko
word: weirdie
word: weirdling
word: weirdo
word: wild man
word: wingnut
word: eccentric
word: free spirit
word: heteroclite
word: individualist
word: maverick
word: misfit
word: nonconformist
word: offbeat
glosses: A person who is extremely abnormal in appearance, social behavior, sexual orientation, gender identity, or business practices; an oddball, a unique person, originally in a displeasing or alienating way.
topics: bodybuilding
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A person whose physique has grown far beyond the normal limits of muscular development; often a bodybuilder weighing more than 260 pounds (120 kg).
examples: text: Bob's a real video-game freak. He owns every games console of the last ten years.
text: Anyone […] who seems "hung up" on some idea, activity or interactional disposition, might be called a "freak."
ref: [1968, Fred Davis with Laura Munoz, “Heads and freaks: patterns and meanings of drug use among hippies”, in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, volume 9, number 2, →DOI, pages 156–164:
text: Presently […] college students […] use freak to denote any kind of enthusiast.
ref: [1969, Paul A. Eschholz, “Freak compounds for "argot freaks"”, in American Speech, volume 44, number 4, →DOI, pages 306–307:
synonyms: word: fanatic
word: geek
word: admirer
word: aficionado
word: buff
word: connoisseur
word: enthusiast
word: devotee
word: maniac
word: fan
word: fanatic
word: fancier
word: fancy
word: fiend
word: freak
word: geek
word: junkie
word: partisan
word: rooter
word: zealot
glosses: An enthusiast, or person who has an obsession with, or extreme knowledge of, something.
examples: text: She's a freak in the sheets!
synonyms: word: horn dog
word: hypersexual
word: pervert
word: donjuanist
word: erotomaniac
word: freak
word: fuckster
word: hornball
word: horn dog
word: hypersexual
word: ramp
word: sex addict
glosses: A very sexually perverse individual.
examples: text: Get your freak on.
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: A wild dance.
examples: text: And then, with heart more hard than stone,
He pick'd my marrow from the bone.
To vex me more, he took a freak
To slit my tongue and make me speak:
But, that which wonderful appears,
I speak to eyes, and not to ears.
ref: 1724, Jonathan Swift, On a Pen:
text: It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew older—and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence—to have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home;
ref: 1815, Jane Austen, chapter 17, in Emma, volume III:
synonyms: word: whim
word: vagary
word: caprice
word: fancy
word: boutade
word: caprice
word: capriccio
word: conceit
word: crotchet
word: delirament
word: fancy
word: fangle
word: figary
word: flisk
word: freak
word: kink
word: lark
word: maggot
word: megrim
word: spleen
word: toy
word: vagary
word: whim
word: whim-wham
word: whimsy
glosses: A sudden change of mind.
synonyms: word: superciliary
english: birds
translation: birds
word: vein
glosses: A streak of colour; variegation.
examples: text: So why am I grieving over someone who doesn't even give a freak about me? These vindictive ideas flowed through my head. A part of me wanted to carve my name into his little Saturn leather seats, but I remembered they weren't leather.
ref: 2011 February 9, Silianise Moise, Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, but . . ., Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 145:
text: They hear you, not out in the car, but when you practically say it to their face, they could make things hard for you, just to get back at you. You never know.” “Hey, Flor, not for nothin', but I don't give a freak about them guys or[…]
ref: 2014 February 4, John Nicholas Iannuzzi, Condemned: A Novel, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
text: Because I've seen the vampires up there, and they don't give a freak about anyone or anything. Tell me you are different." "I am trying to be. The urges are hard to overcome, but, I assure you, you're safe with me.
ref: 2020 December 23, Raven Steele, A Monster's Birth, Raven Steele:
glosses: Euphemistic form of fuck (“smallest amount of concern or consideration”).
Derived terms: circus freak
clean freak
control freak
cyberfreak
defreak
demofreak
eagle freak
ecofreak
freakazoid
freakbeat
freakdom
freakend
freakery
freak flag
fly the freak flag
freak folk
freakful
freakhood
freakish
freakishly
freakjob
freaklitter
freako
freak-off
freak of nature
freak-out
freakout
freak show
freaksome
freak wave
freaky
get one's freak on
Jesus freak
neat freak
nonfreak
phreak
phreaking
speedfreak
superfreak
technofreak
tweak freak
Twitter freak
warfreak