P H R 
PHRAN'GI, a people of Italy in the vicinity of the 
Alps. Steph. Byz. 
PHRAN'ZAor Phranzes (George), a modern Greek 
liiltorian, was from his youth employed in the fervice of 
the Byzantine court, and was the favourite chamberlain, 
of the emperor Manuel. Palreologus, who died A. D, 
14.25, when Phranza was twenty-four years of age. He 
was mailer of the wardrobe to his fuceeflbr John, and alfo 
to Conftantine, the-laft emperor of the Eaft, by whom he 
was fent as ambaflador to the courts of Georgia and 
Trebizond for the purpofe of negotiating a marriage for 
his young fovereign. When the Turks, under Mahomet 
II. in 1453, took Constantinople, Phranza with his family 
underwent the common lot of captivity, and remained 
lour months in flaverv. Being then liberated, he ran- 
fomed his wife; but his two children, a fon and a daugh¬ 
ter in the flower of youth, were feized for the feraglio, 
and loft to their unfortunate parents. Phranza after¬ 
wards became domeftic to prince Thomas, brother of the 
deceafed Conftantine, who employed him in various 
embaflles. He afl’umed the monallic habit before his 
death, which took place at a very advanced age. At the 
requeftof fome noble Corcyreans lie drew up a Chronicle 
of the Affairs of Conftantinople and the Morea, to moll 
of which he had been a witnefs: this work he brought 
down to the year 1461. Though many MSS. of the 
Greek original are extant in libraries, it has been pub- 
lilhed only in the Latin verfion orabftradt of James Pon- 
tanus. Gibbon. 
PHRASE, f. [1 pgaj-i;, Gr. a fpeech.] An idiom ; a 
mode of fpeech peculiar to a language.—An expreflion ; 
a mode of fpeech.—To fear the Lord, and depart from 
evil, are phrafes which the Scripture ufeth to exprefs the 
fum of religion. Tillotfon. 
Now mince the fin, 
And mollify damnation with a phrafe. Dryden. 
Style; expreffton : 
Thou fpeak’ft 
In better phrafe and matter than thou didft. Shaliefpeare. 
To PHRASE, v. a. To ftyle; to call; to term.—Xeno¬ 
phon phrafcs it pharfanga, and computes it thirty furlongs. 
Sir T. Herbert's Trav. p. 117.—She will turn puritan, not 
moderate proteftant, as (he phrufeth it. A. Cook to Abp. 
Ujher. 
Thefe funs. 
For fo they' phret/e T Ire nr, by their heralds challeng’d 
The noble (pirits to arms. Shahefpeare's Hen. VIII. 
To PHRASE, v. n. To employ peculiar expreffions.— 
We have not tied ourfelves to an uniformity of plirajing, 
or to an identity-of words. Tranfalors of the Bible. 
PHRA'SE-BOOK, f. A book in which the idioms of 
a language are explained. 
PHRA'SELESS, adj. Incapable of being defcribed. 
S/iakefpecre. 
PHRASEOLOG'ICAL, adj. [from phrafeology .] Pe¬ 
culiar to a language or phrafe.—The verbal or pfirafelogi- 
cal anfwer may not be fufticient. Pearfon on the Creed, 
Art. 8. 
PHRASEOL'OGIST, f. One (killed in the idioms of 
a language. 
PHRASEOL'OGY, J'. [(pgasu;, fpeech, and A iyu, I ga¬ 
ther.] Style ; diftion.—The fcholars of Ireland feem not 
to have the lead conception of a ftile, but run on in.a flat 
phrujeology, often mingled with barbarous terms, Siuift. 
—A phrafe-book. Ainfworth. 
PHRAT, the name anciently given to the river Eu¬ 
phrates; which fee. Phrat is mentioned in Scripture, 
and is faid to have two derivations from the Hebrew : 
pltc/r or pharntz , to fpread ; and pharah, to produce fruit 
or flowers. Vincent. 
PHRATRIAR'CHUS, f. [Greek.] Among the Athe¬ 
nians, a magiftrate that preftded over the phratria , or 
P H R 205 
third part of a tribe. He had the fame power over the 
phratria that the phylarchus had over the tribe. 
PHREA'TA, in ancient geography, a town of Cappa¬ 
docia, in Garfauria. Ptolemy. 
PHREA' ITS, or Phreat'tium, in Grecian antiquity, 
was a court belonging to the civil government of Athens, 
(ituated upon the fea-ihore, in the Piraeus. The name is 
derived awo ra becaufe it flood in a pit ; or, as 
others fuppofe, from the hero Phreatus. This court 
heard fuch caufes as concerned perfons who had fled out 
of their own country for murder, or thofe that fled for 
involuntary murder, and who had afterwards committed 
a deliberate and wilful murder. The firft who was tried 
in this place was Teucer, on a groundlefs fufpicion that 
he had been acceffory to the death of Ajax. The accufed 
was not allowed to come to land, or fo much as to cafl: 
anchor, but pleaded his caufe in his bark; and, if found 
guilty, was committed to the mercy of the winds and 
waves, or, as fome fay, fuffered there condign punifhment; 
if innocent, he was only cleared of the fecond faft, and, 
according to cuftom, underwent a twelve-month’s ba- 
nifhment for the former. See Potter’s Grecian Antiq. 
vol. i. p. hi. 
PHRE'NES, f. in anatomy, the diaphragm. It was 
thus called by the ancients, from (p^nv, mind; becaufe 
they imagined this to be the feat of the rational foul. 
Hence, phrenefis , phrenfy, or diftradlion. 
PHRENET'IC, or Phren'tic, adj. Gr. 
phrenetique, Fr.] Mad; inflamed in the brain ; frantic.— 
Where now is the ground of our difcontent ? At what 
are fo many peevilh and phreatic? B. Jenks’s Sermon, 
5 Nov. 1689. 
What ceftrum, what phrenetic mood, 
Makes you thus lavilh of your blood ? Hudibras. 
PHRENET'IC, or Phrentic,/. A madman; a frantic 
perfon. —Phrenetics imagine they fee that without, which 
their imagination is alfetted with within. Harvey. —The 
world was little better than a common fold of phrentics, or 
bedlams. Woodward's Nat. Hijl. 
PHRE'NIC, adj. An epithet applied to parts belonging 
to the diaphragm ; as the nerve, artery, See. 
PHRE'NITE. See Zeolithus viridis. 
PHRENI'TIS, f. [from tpgw, the mind; fometimes 
written phrenefis, a phrenfy, or a diforder of the under- 
(landi ngjapientice csgritudo, as Pliny denominates if, Hid. 
Nat. lib. vii. cap. 51.] A continued ferocious delirium, 
accompanied by an acute fever, and ariflng from inflam¬ 
mation of the brain, or its membranes. I11 the language 
of modern nofologifts, phrenitis fignifies literally “inflam¬ 
mation of the brain ;” the termination itis implying in¬ 
flammation of the organ alluded to, as in hepatitis, ente¬ 
ritis, Sfc. Some writers derive the word from the 
diaphragm, in which organ the mind was anciently fup- 
po(ed to be feated. See Emprefma cephalitis, under the 
article Pathology, vol. xix. p. 236. 
PHRENOL'OG Y,or CRANiOLOGY,yi A newly-difclofed 
fcience, by which the dilpofitions of the mind ((pgviv) are 
fuppoled to be difcoverable by certain prominences on 
the cranium, orlkull. See the article Physiognomy. 
PHREN'SY, /, [from Cp^snzn;, Gr.] Madnefs; fran- 
ticnefs. This is too often written Frenzy, which fee, 
vol. v.—Many never think on God but in extremity of 
fear; and then, perplexity not fufifering them to be idle, 
they think and do as it were in a phrenfy. Hooker .— 
Phrenfy, or inflammation of the brain, profufe hemor¬ 
rhages from the nofe refolve, and copious bleeding in the 
temporal arteries. Arbuthnot on Aliments. 
PHRETOM ANO'RUM URBS, in ancient geography, 
a town of Italy, in Samnium, of which Q. Fabius took po(- 
feflion, according to Diodorus Siculus. 
PHRICO'DES, f. [from the Gr. <pgiy.n, horror, (hiver¬ 
ing.) A fever delcribed by the ancients, of a remittent 
femitertian form, in which the paroxyfms are not only 
uftiered in by (hiverings, but accompanied by them 
through 
