Hello, I’m a literature student (or should I say literature freak?).
I’m new on this forum, and it seems to me a dream come true to have a new way to satisfy the best of the human pulses: curiosity.

my first question is:
could you tell me the etymology of the word "freak"?

eux

[feel free to inform me of any mistake I make with my english]

freak has a rather doubtful etymology.one source could be the anglo-saxon frec, i.e.bold, but i am not satisfied with that explanation. the old english verb frician, i.e.to dance, is another possibility, and a doubtful one, too.
b.g.

From ‘bold’ or from ‘dance’?
It would be interesting to know which are the passages that have borne to the actual meaning:

[Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary]
freak /fri:k/ n 1 (infml derog) person considered abnormal because of his behaviour, appearance, ideas, etc […] 2 (infml) person with a specified interest or obsession; fan  […] 3 very unusual event or action  […] 4 (also freak of nature) person, animal or plant that is abnormal in form.

I find it a rather lively word, it works also in my motherlanguage (italian).

Welcome!

One of my favorite resources is the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary:

freak - 1563, "sudden turn of mind," probably related to O.E. frician "to dance" (not recorded in M.E., but the word may have survived in dialect), or perhaps from M.E. frek "bold, quickly," from O.E. frec "greedy, gluttonous." Sense of "capricious notion" (1563) and "unusual thing, fancy" (1784) preceded that in freak of nature (1847). The verb freak out is first attested 1965 in Amer.Eng., from freak (n.) "drug user" (1945), but the verb meaning "change, distort" goes back to 1911, and the sense in health freak, ecology freak, etc. is attested from 1908.

Some of the information is redundant, but I thought you might enjoy the resource and some of the other details, nonetheless.

-Tim

One of my favorite resources is the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary:

Wonderful indeed!

Thank you.