Unnumbered source etymology
Original entry ↗To manipulate in some ill-defined way; to tweak or mess about with. · To perform a task that is clear to the speaker but too complex or tedious to be explained, so that outside help is not helpful. · To transform and obscure in a trivial fashion with memfrob(3).
Any small device or object (usually hand-sized) which can be manipulated.
Clipping of frobnicate, from frobnitz, coined circa 1958 by David R. Sawyer of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC). Year of origin uncertain, and could be 1958–1981: frob is not listed in the TMRC dictionaries of 1959 or 1960, and is first listed in the Jargon File (1981 edition), so it may date from the 1960s or 1970s. Possibly variant of or influenced by frotsus (“a protruding arm or trunnion”), which is listed in TMRC 1959 and 1960.
Inspect preserved source fields
Raw extraction fields are retained for auditing. Their order does not establish ancestry.
{
"templates": [
{
"name": "clipping",
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "frobnicate"
},
"expansion": "Clipping of frobnicate"
}
],
"links": [
[
"frobnicate",
"frobnicate#English"
],
[
"frobnitz",
"frobnitz#English"
],
[
"MIT",
"MIT"
],
[
"frotsus",
"frotsus#English"
],
[
"trunnion",
"trunnion"
]
],
"references": [],
"descendants": [],
"lexical": [
{
"pos": "verb",
"glosses": [
"To manipulate in some ill-defined way; to tweak or mess about with.",
"To perform a task that is clear to the speaker but too complex or tedious to be explained, so that outside help is not helpful.",
"To transform and obscure in a trivial fashion with memfrob(3)."
],
"tags": [
"rare",
"slang",
"transitive"
],
"recordId": "2b5ac37d2b9ccdf343d94b1220417916feee1d94107aef1efed357f137945a34",
"rawRecordSha256": "95be0eb9153b8b81c13e5d314fee6c6f60ea30b6c86bfa48b97c4529637fc63d",
"sourceRecordOrdinal": 2391553
},
{
"pos": "noun",
"glosses": [
"Any small device or object (usually hand-sized) which can be manipulated."
],
"tags": [
"slang"
],
"recordId": "b396961a39d86e0d6895004253e5437266db2116bd23476d38e8c77ca1078f10",
"rawRecordSha256": "d5284d615baba893efffc1eb90844951136281becb68bf6d1346a834251f48f7",
"sourceRecordOrdinal": 2391552
}
],
"omittedAuxiliaryFields": {
"templates": 0,
"links": 0,
"references": 0,
"descendants": 0,
"lexicalRecords": 0,
"lexicalSenses": 0,
"glosses": 0
}
}