[Not found before 16th c.; possibly introduced from dialects, and cognate with OE. frlcian (Matt. xi. 17) to dance.]
1. A sudden causeless change or turn of the mind; a capricious humor, notion, whim, or vagary.
1563. Mirr. Mag., Jane Shore, ii.
| This wandring world bewitched me with wyles, | |
| And won my wits with wanton sugred ioyes, | |
| In Fortunes frekes who trustes her when she smiles, | |
| Shal fynde her false and ful of fickle toyes. |
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. iv. 50.
| O but I feare the fickle freakes (quoth shee) | |
| Of fortune false, and oddes of armes in field. |
1632. Marmion, Holland’s Leaguer, II. i.
| Her I’ll make | |
| A stale, to take this courtier in a freak. |
1661. Cowley, Disc. Govt. O. Cromwell, Wks. 1710, II. 664. Now the Freak takes him, and he makes seventy Peers of the Land at one clap.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 427, 10 July, ¶ 2. She is so exquisitely restless and peevish, that she Quarrels with all about her, and sometimes in a Freak will instantly change her Habitation.
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., 79.
| Amid the freaks that modern fashion sanctions, | |
| It grieves me much to see live animals | |
| Brought on the stage. |
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle Lands, vi. 158. Ibrahim Pasha, in a freak of tyrannical fury, turned every Mahometan out of the city, and rased their houses to the ground.
1891. E. W. Gosse, Gossip in Library, v. 56. It [frontispiece of Donne] is not really the picture of a dead man: it represents the result of one of the grimmest freaks that ever entered into a pious mind.
2. The disposition of a mind subject to such humours; capriciousness.
1678. R. L’Estrange, Seneca’s Mor. (1702), 54. It is the Freak of many People, they cannot do a good Office, but they are presently boasting of it, Drunk or Sober.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., Ser. II. xviii. 380. Several that have ruined their fortunes out of mere freak.
1848. C. Brontë, J. Eyre, xiii. A decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage.
3. A capricious prank or trick, a caper.
1648. Hunting of Fox, 40. They have … played freakes [printed reakes] in the Country.
1724. Gay, Quidnuncki’s.
| Thus, as in giddy freaks he bounces, | |
| Crack goes the twig, and in he flounces! |
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Jackdaw.
| And the priests, with awe, As such freaks they saw, | |
| Said, ‘The Devil must be in that little Jackdaw!’ |
1865. Trollope, Belton Est., i. 3. Charles had been expelled from Harrow for some boyish freak.
4. A product of irregular or sportive fancy.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 130.
| Thy most magnificent and mighty freak [an ice-palace], | |
| The wonder of the North. |
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Wealth, Wks. (Bohn), II. 74. Strawberry Hill of Horace Walpole, Fonthill Abbey of Mr. Beckford, were freaks.
b. (More fully freak of nature, = lusus naturæ): A monstrosity, an abnormally developed individual of any species; in recent use (esp. U.S.), a living curiosity exhibited in a show.
1847. A. M. Gilliam, Trav. Mexico, 230. Many were the curiosities, and the freaks of nature that I beheld in the singular formations of the rocks.
1883. Daily News, 11 Sept., 2/5. An association of … natural curiosities usually exhibited at booths … called the ‘Freaks’ Union,’ the word freaks being an abbreviation of the term ‘freaks of nature’ by which these monstrosities are described.
1891. C. James, Rom. Rigmarole, 130. The two freaks were retired into private life for purposes of refreshment.
5. Comb., as freak-show; freak-doing adj.
1862. R. H. Patterson, Ess. Hist. & Art, 470. The freak-doing Aswins, and demons (noxious powers) of the atmosphere, may be said to complete the simple supernaturalism of the Rig Veda.
1887. E. R. Pennell, The Decline and Fall of Dr. Faustus, in Contemp. Rev., LI. March, 400, note. In an article on ‘Penny Gaffs’ in Chambers’ Magazine for February, the writer merely describes what I should call penny peep, or rather freak, shows, never once mentioning the Penny Theatre.
Hence Freakdom, the region or domain of caprice; Freakery, freaks collectively; Freakful a., freakish, capricious; Freaksome a. = prec.
1820. Keats, Lamia, I. 229.
| Jove heard his vows, and better’d his desire; | |
| For by some freakful chance he made retire | |
| From his companions, and set forth to walk, | |
| Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk. |
1854. Chamb. Jrnl., III. 9 Sept., 175/2. The Puck of Fancy, that freaksome, tricksy sprite, must be caught, caged, and tamed: Imagination must be the slave, Reason the lord-paramount of the hour.
1873–4. A. J. Ellis, in Trans. Philol. Soc., 15. Was it [‘scrumptious’], when invented, a pure fancy of the moment, with nothing but absurdity and freakdom to generate it?
1876. J. Weiss, Wit, Hum. & Shaks., i. 5. What a wide range of Nature’s curious freakery a forest has, or a district of country like those plains and thickets of Africa, where the natives dig their pit and organize a monster drive!
