# All Slavic languages: frajer, frajár



## KasiaS

I'm just wondering about the etymology of this word. Does it come from German "Freier"?


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## Athaulf

KasiaS said:


> I'm just wondering about the etymology of this word. Does it come from German "Freier"?



I'm pretty sure it does. This word, which originally meant "bachelor" or "suitor", has entered just about any Slavic language at some point in history, but in the meantime, its meaning has drifted in totally different directions in different languages (including German ).


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## (Infant)ry

Yeah Athaulf is right, but in Croatian it is more of a big shot, tough guy or a dude that tries to act slick (cool). I believe the same thing goes for Polish.


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## skye

It has a similar meaning in Slovenian as in Croatian, but while I heard this word quite often as a kid, I don't remember hearing it very often now.


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## Setwale_Charm

And, I believe, the meaning of this word in Russia is the same....

God, how close to each other Slavs are And Germans as usual have played a trick on giving out a word which was interpreted in a way completely different from the original


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## Suane

Well, in Slovakia, beside the meaning that (Infant)ry wrote, it also means boyfriend or girlfriend-frajerka (although it belongs to slang), so it's somehow close to original, I guess.


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## KasiaS

Actually, in Polish the word is pejorative, to my understanding at least. It seems to mean something like "idiot".


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## sokol

Very interesting what meanings are now attributed to 'frajer' in several Slavic languages; however, in German the drift of meaning was completely different - 'Freier' at least here in Austria is almost exclusively used for men frequenting brothels and picking up street prostitutes.
(And I think it is similar in Switzerland and Germany.)


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## Setwale_Charm

sokol said:


> Very interesting what meanings are now attributed to 'frajer' in several Slavic languages; however, in German the drift of meaning was completely different - 'Freier' at least here in Austria is almost exclusively used for men frequenting brothels and picking up street prostitutes.
> (And I think it is similar in Switzerland and Germany.)


 
The dicitonary, however, also provides the "suitor" meaning for this word. I think, the Slavic languages just elaborated on a more narrow German word, as usual


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## Piotr_WRF

I agree with KasiaS. In Polish _frajer_ means a _sucker_, _mug_ or _fall guy_.

According to Wikipedia _freien_ in Old German meant _to marry_. There's still the expression "_auf Freiers Füßen_", which denotes a man looking for a bride. But today a  _Freier_ in German is only a customer of a prostitute.


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## sokol

Setwale_Charm said:


> The dicitonary, however, also provides the "suitor" meaning for this word. I think, the Slavic languages just elaborated on a more narrow German word, as usual


Yes, dictionaries still mention the German 'suitor' meaning, but don't you dare ever using it in this sense, you might be completely misunderstood  - in German, the 'suitor' meaning is outdated (as I now checked with my Dictionaries: this should be the case for Germany too, it's no Austrian speciality), but in Slavic languages obviously this did lead to other semantics. (Only some idioms with 'Freier' still could be used in a more neutral way.)


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## Setwale_Charm

Piotr_WRF said:


> I agree with KasiaS. In Polish _frajer_ means a _sucker_, _mug_ or _fall guy_.
> 
> According to Wikipedia _freien_ in Old German meant _to marry_. There's still the expression "_auf Freiers Füßen_", which denotes a man looking for a bride. But today a _Freier_ in German is only a customer of a prostitute.


 

A truly strange association bei Maennern between the "free"-root and marriage/brides. I always say; men used to be much better in days of yore


sokol said:


> but don't you dare ever using it in this sense, you might be completely misunderstood  - in German, the 'suitor' meaning is outdated


As I said, nowadays, they tend to be more narrowly focused on quite other things


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## cajzl

It reminded me the film with Paul Newman "Cool Hand Luke". The title was fittingly translated into Czech: *Frajer Luke*.

Another Czech loanword of the same origin (more adapted to the Czech phonetic system, now archaic): *frejíř = *_dandy, debauchee_


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## Binario

In Russian old slang (during almost all 20th century)there was a very common word "фраер" (frah-yer), sometimes (very seldom) it's used even now. But the meaning was quite opposite to "tough guy". It meant a sucker, an idiot, a whimp, in general-"a civilian", from criminal's point of view. Somebody, who didn't belong to criminal world and so could be easily turned into a victim. I heard that the origin of this word in Russian some attribute to Yiddish of the beginning of 20th century. Before the revolution criminals of the southern cities of Russian Empire were very influential, and there had been a lot of Jewish people among them, so in old Russian criminal slang there were some Yiddish words.


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## papillon

Binario said:


> In Russian old slang (during almost all 20th century)there was a very common word "фраер" (frah-yer), sometimes (very seldom) it's used even now


 Very seldom indeed. On the other hand, I still use the verb фраернуться (_frayernut'sia)_ meaning doing something that seemed smart but in the end that turns out to be a complete waste of time (or money). Да, фраернулся ты братец с этими акциями! 


Binario said:


> ...in old Russian criminal slang there were some Yiddish words.


 There was a thread dealing with Yiddish loanwords in Russian ~ a year ago.


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## robbie_SWE

The German word entered Romanian as *fraier* some hundreds of years ago thanks to the German minority in Transylvania. 

It is still used today with the meaning "_idiot_", "_naiv person_" and "_someone who can't take care of himself_" (synonym of *tont*; cf. Spanish, Italian _tonto_). Many words are derived from the original word, e.g. *fraieri* ("to betray", "to cheat"). 

 robbie


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## mietagosia

Hello!
The question asked by parolearruffate made me wonder what the word frajer (fraier) means in different Slavic languages because it seems like it has different connotations for each particular Slavic language. 
In Polish frajer means a loser, someone ridiculous and pathetic, making lame attempts (especially while hitting on girls). The female equivalent is frajerka. My Croatian friend told me that for her it's totally the opposite - that frajer refers to a cool trendy guy. For a change, now I find out that the Czech meaning is a dandy, a fancy flirtatious guy. That's interesting . Are there any other Slavic languages in which frajer/fraier carries a different meaning (even if it's the same as one of the above, I'd still like to know)?

Cheers,
MietaGosia


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## Duya

We had the same topic very recently:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=781472


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## dudasd

The previous thread was about origin of the word, its meanings in different Slavic languages were not elaborated too much. But I guess our mod will decide if this is a doubled thread or not.

In Serbian "frajer" has two meanings, depending on a social group. In normal language, it means handsome, peculiar guy (in language of girls) or deft, strong guy, good friend (in language of males). BUT: in language of criminals, frajer used to mean a meek, almost female-like guy, and for a guy with good qualities they used the word džek. (NOTE: This refers to the language of '80's and 90's, and I can't be sure that the second meaning is still alive.)


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## Athaulf

dudasd said:


> The previous thread was about origin of the word, its meanings in different Slavic languages were not elaborated too much. But I guess our mod will decide if this is a doubled thread or not.
> 
> In Serbian "frajer" has two meanings, depending on a social group. In normal language, it means handsome, peculiar guy (in language of girls) or deft, strong guy, good friend (in language of males).



In Croatia, it's still widely used with this meaning. However, since it's a very old slang word, it's lost most of its strength and expressiveness. Nowadays it's often used as just another word for "guy" or "dude". 



> BUT: in language of criminals, frajer used to mean a meek, almost female-like guy, and for a guy with good qualities they used the word džek. (NOTE: This refers to the language of '80's and 90's, and I can't be sure that the second meaning is still alive.)



Interesting, I never encountered this meaning.


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## dudasd

Athaulf said:


> Interesting, I never encountered this meaning.


 
I'd call it "knowledge from the first hand" in my case.  But I've just checked in "Rečnik žargona" by Dragoslav Andrić (1976) and he also gives both meanings:

a) mladić, momak, čovek, drug, kicoš, dasa, ljubavnik
b) gotovan, lenština, parazit, besposličar, badavadžija, glupak, nespretnjak, nedrugar, neznalica, golja, naivko

Verb *frajerisati (se)*: lenčariti, traćiti vreme, zavitlavati se, govoriti odn. raditi koješta, živeti parazitski


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## hinko

In Slovenian it also means "a cool guy".


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## winpoj

In Czech the word "frajer" can carry either a positive or a negative meaning depending on context and tone.

It may refer to the person's appearance but it can also be used as a general term of admiration.

I think that there are some dialects in which "frajer/frajerka" means or used to mean "boyfriend/girlfriend".

There is also a word "frejíř", meaning "womanizer" which I believe is related but is certainly outdated and no longer in common use.


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## Oletta

In Slovak they say _frajar/frajarka_, don't they?


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## Kolan

hinko said:


> In Slovenian it also means "a cool guy".


In Russian a typical occurrence would be "*дешёвый фраер*" (= *a cheap dude*). But it is true, as mentioned above, the word itself, suprisingly, has (almost) disappeared quickly and already sounds outdated. Instead *фраеров*, we have now *кренделей* with a quite similar connotation.


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## zuzanadoma

winpoj said:


> In Czech the word "frajer" can carry either a positive or a negative meaning depending on context and tone.
> 
> It may refer to the person's appearance but it can also be used as a general term of admiration.
> 
> I think that there are some dialects in which "frajer/frajerka" means or used to mean "boyfriend/girlfriend".
> 
> There is also a word "frejíř", meaning "womanizer" which I believe is related but is certainly outdated and no longer in common use.



Also:

frajeřit (verb) - show off, boast
frajírek (diminutive) - slightly negative connotations, one who shows off, boasts


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