Where Does the Word "Fridge" Come From? It Turns 100 in 2026

Short answer: "fridge" is a shortened and altered form of "refrigerator". Merriam-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary and Etymonline all date its first known use to 1926, which makes 2026 the word's hundredth year.

A word for "something that cools"

"Refrigerator" is far older than the appliance. Etymonline dates it to the 1610s, when it meant anything that cools, an agent noun built on "refrigerate", from the Latin refrigerare, "to make cool". The meaning we use today, a cabinet that keeps food cold, arrived in 1824, first in the brewery trade, replacing the earlier "refrigeratory".

Before "fridge": icebox and "frigerator"

Before electric refrigeration, a cold cabinet ran on blocks of ice. "Icebox" is recorded from 1839, first meaning an ice chest. People were already clipping the long word, too: Etymonline records "frigerator" as a colloquial shortening by 1886.

Frigidaire, and where the "d" may come from

Electric household refrigerators became widely available from about 1918, and Frigidaire was a popular early brand of automatic, ice-free refrigerator. Etymonline dates the brand name to 1919; the OED's earliest evidence for it is from 1926. Etymonline suggests the brand perhaps influenced the new short word, which would explain a spelling with a "d" that "refrigerator" does not have. That link is a likely story, not a recorded fact: Merriam-Webster simply describes "fridge" as formed by shortening and alteration.

1926: the first "fridge"

The OED's earliest evidence for "fridge" is a 1926 text by Edward Spanner. Merriam-Webster gives 1926 as the first known use; Dictionary.com places it between 1925 and 1930. Etymonline notes that a clipped word with an added letter is an unusual way to form a word in English.

Why 2026 matters

The appliance has changed a great deal since 1926, from ice-cooled cabinets to the electric models in kitchens today. The word for it turns 100 this year.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster: fridge (first known use 1926; shortening and alteration)
• Oxford English Dictionary: fridge, n. (earliest evidence 1926)
• Etymonline: refrigerator (1610s; the food-cabinet sense in 1824; "frigerator" by 1886)
• Etymonline: fridge (1926; perhaps influenced by Frigidaire, 1919)
• Etymonline: ice-box (1839)
• Dictionary.com: fridge (1925 to 1930)