Fresco

How to spell fresco

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fresco

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fresco mean?

1. nounA painting made by applying water-based pigment to freshly laid, still-wet plaster so the colour fuses with the surface.

Fresco in a sentence

• The restored fresco on the chapel ceiling drew crowds all summer.

• The museum guide explained how each fresco had to be finished before the plaster dried.

Where does fresco come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word comes straight from the Italian fresco, which simply means 'fresh' or 'cool'. The painting term is a shortening of the phrase 'affresco' or 'a fresco', meaning 'on the fresh', because the artist worked directly onto plaster while it was still damp, letting the pigment bind into the wall as it dried. Italian itself inherited fresco from a Germanic source, the Old High German frisc, which is the same root that gives English the everyday word 'fresh'. English borrowed the artistic sense in the late 1500s, when travellers and writers brought back accounts of the great wall paintings of Italy. That shared ancestry with 'fresh' is a handy memory aid: a fresco was painted fresh, on fresh plaster, and the spelling keeps the single c and the Italian -o ending.

How the word is built

• fresc- (Italian frescare/fresco: fresh, cool)
• -o (Italian masculine noun ending)