frisk

/fɹɪsk/

frisk adjective: lively; brisk.

Adjective

frisk

(archaic) Lively; brisk.
- Her hands must hide her mouth if she but smile; Fain would she seem all frisk and frolic still1597, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, in Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Three Bookes, of Tooth-lesse Satyrs. […], London: […] Thomas Creede, for Robert Dexter, →OCLC
Synonyms:

frolicsome, frisky

Noun

frisk (plural frisks)

A little playful skip or leap; a brisk and lively movement.

Synonyms:

gambol, frolic
The act of frisking, of searching for something by feeling someone's body.
- The customs officer gave me a frisk after I went through the metal detector.
Synonyms:

frisking, patdown

Verb

frisk (third-person singular simple present frisks, present participle frisking, simple past and past participle frisked)

(intransitive) To frolic, gambol, skip, dance, leap.
(transitive) To search (someone) by feeling their body and clothing.
- The police frisked the suspiciously-acting individual and found a knife as well as a bag of marijuana.
(transitive) To search (a place).
- Furniture was tipped over and drawers pulled out. Someone had obviously frisked the joint before we arrived.

Proper noun capitalized: Frisk

Frisk (plural Frisks)

A surname.

frisk meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

frisk in Urdu

to frisk, hop, jump, leap, spring: اچھلنا uchalnā

frisk in Malayalam

frolic, gambol, cavort: തുള്ളിക്കളിക്കുക, തുള്ളിക്കുതിക്കുക, തുള്ളുക, സന്തോഷത്താൽ കുതിച്ചുചാടുക, ചാടുക, ചേഷ്ടകൾ കാണിക്കുക
body-search, search, check: തപ്പിനോക്കുക, തപ്പുക, തടവുക, ദേഹം തടവി പരിശോധനിക്കുക, പോക്കറ്റുതപ്പുക, തപ്പരവുക

frisk in Kannada

ಕುಣಿದಾಡು, ನೆಗೆದಾಡು, ಜಿಗಿದಾಡು, ಎಗರಾಡು, ಕುಪ್ಪಳಿಸು, ಶೋಧಿಸು

More languagesFewer languages

frisk in Tagalog: kapkapan

Synonyms of frisk

All synonyms of frisk

Forms of frisk

Noun
plural	frisks
Verb
third-person singular present	frisks
present participle	frisking
past participle	frisked
past	frisked
Proper noun
plural	Frisks

Plural of frisk: frisks

Origin of frisk

From Middle English frisk (“lively, frisky”), from Middle French frisque (“lively, jolly, blithe, fine, spruce, gay”), of Germanic origin, perhaps from Middle Dutch frisc (“fresh”) or Old High German frisc (“fresh”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *friskaz (“fresh”). Cognate with Icelandic frískur (“frisky, fresh”). Doublet of fresco and fresh. More at fresh. Alternative etymology derives frisk from an alteration (due to Old French fresche (“fresh”)) of Old French fricque, frique (“smart, strong, playful, bright”), from Gothic *𐍆𐍂𐌹𐌺𐍃 (*friks, “greedy, hungry”), from Proto-Germanic *frekaz, *frakaz (“greedy, active”), from Proto-Indo-European *preg- (“greedy, fierce”). Cognate with Middle Dutch vrec (“greedy, avaricious”), German frech (“insolent”), Old English frec (“greedy, eager, bold, daring, dangerous”). More at freak.

Words formed from frisk

Phrases with frisk

stop and frisk

Words that rhyme with frisk

Questions about frisk

What does frisk mean?: Frisk means lively; brisk.
What is frisk in Tamil?: Frisk in Tamil is குதி, துள்ளு. See Frisk meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is frisk?: Frisk can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce frisk?: Frisk is pronounced /fɹɪsk/.

Words near frisk in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: frisk (page history and authors); Frisk (page history and authors); frisk (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اچھلنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); frisk (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); frisk (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-frisk.wav.

Cite this entry: “frisk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/frisk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.