Today's Word "Fricassee"
Published in Vocabulary
fricassee \fri-keh-SEE or FRI-keh-see\ (noun) - A dish made of poultry or meat, fresh or leftover, cut into small pieces, sauteed, then stewed in a gravy.
"Sullivan's proposal contained nothing new; it was just a fricassee of leftover ideas from the proposal he made the previous year."
Today's word is the untarnished French past participle, "fricassee," from fricasser "to fricassee." The French verb probably comes from a compound of frire "to fry" + casser "to break up, break apart." French "frire" descended from Latin frigere "to roast, fry" which shares a root with its near antonym fridigus "frigid" in the same way that "cold" and "scald" share the same original root. French "cassare" comes from Latin quassare "to shake, shatter." It would seem to be unrelated to "quake" despite the similarity in sound and meaning.
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