Forms: 6–7 fregate, -att, -ot, frig(g)ot(e, -tt, 6–9 frigat, (6 frygatte, 7 fricket, friggatt, -ett), 6– frigate. Also 6 in It. form fragatta [ad. Fr. frégate, ad. It. fregata, fragata, = Sp., Pg., Cat. fragata.
The ultimate etymology is unknown, the hypothesis of Diez, that it represents a late L. fabricāta in the sense ‘building’ (cf. F. bâtiment building, ship), being generally rejected by recent scholars.]
1. A light and swift vessel, orig. built for rowing, afterwards for sailing. Obs. exc. poet.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, I. ii. 2 b. With a frigat to accompany vs and to bring backe newes from vs.
1588. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s Hist. China, 151. All which people were embarked in small ships and two frygattes [printed foygattes] that came from the Ilandes there borderers.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 111. And toward Sunne set, the castle sent a Fragatta vnto vs, to giue vs warning of three Foistes comming after vs.
1613. Sherley, Trav. Persia, 8. Perceiuing a Fregat a farre off, rowing towards vs, for hast, left most of our things behind vs.
1698. J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 106. The other are Frigats fit to Row or Sail, made with Prows instead of Beaks, more useful in Rivers and Creeks, than in the Main.
1732. Lediard, Sethos, II. VIII. 171. He promis’d … to furnish him … with a frigat to carry him … to the port.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xxiv.
| Permit me, first, the task to guide | |
| Your fairy frigate o’er the tide. |
2. Applied to a vessel of larger size. † a. A merchantman. Also galleon-frigate. Obs.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, V. 180. They sent one of the two Frigats last left with them for England, to tell them of this misery.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., IX. § 115. They … had at that time another Frigat of Mr Hasduncks.
1723. Lond. Gaz., No. 6142/2. 1/18 of the Craggs Frigate.
1800. Naval Chron., III. 237. Two more galleon frigates were expected.
1894. C. N. Robinson, Brit. Fleet, 228. Among the merchant-men serving against the Armada in Drake’s squadron was a frigate Elizabeth Fownes, and before that Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed to his doom in the little frigate, the Squirrel, of ten tons.
fig. 1642. Milton, An Apology against Smectymnuus (1851), 258. He must cut out large docks and creeks into his text, to unlade the foolish frigate of his unseasonable autorities.
b. A war-vessel. In the Royal Navy, formerly a vessel of the class next in size and equipment to ships of the line, carrying from 28 to 60 guns on the main deck and a raised quarter-deck and forecastle. As now used, the term no longer denotes a distinct class of vessels, being often applied to ships of much larger size than those that were so designated early in the nineteenth century.
1630. R. Johnson, Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms, etc., 224. There are continuall fights with the Portugall Frigats, maintained by the English and Hollanders.
1641. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 41. The packet-boat, being a pretty frigate of six guns.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), I. 264. Being with one of the king’s frigates in the Baltic.
1825. J. Neal, Brother Jonathan, III. 43. Without a single ship of war, frigate, or sloop, to encounter a powerful navy.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Donkey Jrigate, those of 28 guns, frigate-built; that is, having guns protected by an upper deck, with guns on the quarter-deck and forecastle.
1877. Sir C. W. Thomson, Voy. ‘Challenger,’ I. i. 11. The particular build of the ‘Challenger’ gives her an immense advantage for her present purpose, as she has all the accommodation of a frigate with the handiness and draught of water of a corvette.
3. A large swift-flying raptorial bird (Fregata aquila or Tachypetes aquilus), found near land in the tropical and warmer temperate seas. Also frigate-bird, -petrel.
1738. Albin, Nat. Hist. Birds, III. 75. The Frigate Bird. The Indians call it so, because of the Swiftness of its Flight.
1756. Phil. Trans., XLIX. 627. The sea-birds, called frigates, and many other kinds, quit the air, and seek the shore.
1837. Mrs. Caulfield, Deluge, 94.
| The kingly eagle, frigat, pelican | |
| Of rosy tints. |
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., vi. (1878), 142. No one except Audubon has seen the frigate-bird, which has all its four toes webbed, alight on the surface of the ocean.
1895. Daily News, 16 Sept., 6/2. The Frigate Petrel … a specimen was washed up dead on the shore of Walney Island in November 1890.
4. attrib. and Comb., as frigate-almshouse (nonce-wd.), -fashion; frigate-like adj. and adv. Also frigate-built a., having ‘a descent of some steps from the quarter-deck and forecastle into the waist’ (Adm. Smyth); frigate-bird, -petrel (see 3).
a. 1657. Lovelace, Poems (1864), 200–1.
| Have you not seen a charact lie | |
| A great cathedral in the sea, | |
| Under whose Babylonian walls | |
| A small thin *frigot almshouse stalls? |
1676. Lond. Gaz., No. 1130/4. Viva Oranga of St. Malo’s, Burthen 50 Tuns … *Frigat built.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 213. A small frigate-built vessel, under Spanish colours, pennant flying, appeared off at sea.
1863. P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 75. A ship of more than usually heavy scantling, and with a variety of foreign timber judiciously distributed in all its parts, might have fairly claimed to be frigate-built.
1641. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 18. The work of the famous Phineas Pett, inventor of the *frigate-fashion of building.
1676. Lond. Gaz., No. 1077/4. A small Bark, called the Castle Frigat of Falmouth, burthen 25 to 30 Tun, built *Frigat like. Ibid. (1708), No. 4398/3. Captain Haddock … got Sight … of two Frigat-like Ships.
