Language Of Confusion: Per-, Part IX

Could it be? Are we actually looking at the last set of words descended from the Proto Indo European per-, forward? I can’t believe it is!
 
First we’re going to look at frame. Yes, like a picture frame, though that didn’t show up until the mid seventeenth century, while when it showed up in the thirteenth century it meant to profit or to benefit, and then parts of a structure fitted together in the fifteenth, which then started to mean an enclosing border in the seventeenth century, and then a picture frame. The word itself is from the Old English framian, which means to further or to profit or benefit, and that’s from fram, which means forward or, uh, from. Yeah. Frame is from from. And from is from can be traced to per-, we just went over it a while ago.
 
Next is furnish—it’s about time these got weird. Furnish showed up in the mid fifteenth century, coming from the Vulgar Latin fornire/fromire, which is actually from the Germanic frumjan and Proto Germanic fram-, which is where frame and from come from. I mean, I can almost see the logic of forward turning into furnish, but it’s a hell of a walk. And of course furniture is from the same place, having shown up in the sixteenth century meaning the act of supplying or providing, and then starting to mean household furniture fifty years later—interestingly, English is the only language that has this. Other languages words for furniture are related to mobile (because you can move furniture). Anyway, it’s from the French fourniture, supply, from the Old French forneture and its verb form fornir, which comes from the same place furnish does.
 
Another word from furnish? Veneer. Yes, like to cover something with a veneer. It showed up in 1702 from the German Furnier, and its verb form. That’s actually also from fornir, meaning veneer and furnish are pretty closely related for words that have very little in common.
 
Now, for the last word: fret—not like a guitar fret, which is different, but worrying fret. It comes from the Old English fretan, to devour, and that’s what it meant originally, before it started to mean to worry (it does eat away at you). Before fretan, it was the Proto Germanic fra-etan, with the fra- meaning completely and being from per-. This is certainly an odd one.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica