bhreg-

To break.

Derivatives include breach, fraction, frail¹, infringe, and suffrage.

1.

a. break, from Old English brecan, to break;

b. breach, from Old English brēc, a breaking;

c. brash², breccia, from Italian breccia, breccia, rubble, breach in a wall, from Old High German *brehha, from brehhan, to break;

d. bray², from Old French breier, to break;

e. brioche, from Old French brier, dialectal variant of broyer, to knead. a-e all from Germanic *brekan.

2. bracken, brake⁴, from Middle English brake(n), bracken, probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse *brakni, undergrowth;

b. brake⁵, from Middle Low German brake, thicket. Both a and b from Germanic *brak-, bushes (< “that which impedes motion”).

3. brake², from Middle Low German brake, flax brake, from Germanic *brāk-, crushing instruments.

4. Nasalized zero-grade form *bhr̥-n-g-. fractal, fracted, fraction, fractious, fracture, fragile, fragment, frail¹, frangible; anfractuous, chamfer, defray, diffraction, infract, infrangible, infringe, irrefrangible, ossifrage, refract, refrain², refringent, sassafras, saxifrage, septifragal, from Latin frangere, to break.

5.

a. suffragan, suffrage, from Latin suffrāgium, the right to vote, from suffrāgārī, to vote for (? < “to use a broken piece of tile as a ballot”);

b. irrefragable, from Latin refrāgārī, to vote against.

 

[Pokorny 1. bhreg̑- 165 (but g̑not on good evidence).]

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