An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Franse

by Friedrich Kluge

Franse, feminine, ‘fringe,’ from Middle High German franze, feminine, ‘fringe, ornament, fillet’; hence franzen, verb, ‘to fringe.’ From Romance; compare French frange, Italian frangia. “This originally French word corresponds exactly to the well-known Old High German framea, in the same way as vendange to vindemia; Fransen are pendant ‘darts’ or lace, just as the flap of a coat is a broad spear-head (see Schoß, Gehren); the etymology is both grammatically and logically unobjectionable.” Though framea has certainly not been preserved within the entire Teutonic group in the sense of ‘javelin,’ or in any other sense, yet the Latinised framea long remained current in early Middle Latin. The derivation of the Romance words from Latin fimbria, ‘fringe,’ is not free from phonetic difficulties.