To adorn; ornament; set off.
To eat up; devour.
To eat into; gnaw; corrode.
To wear away; fray; rub; chafe: as, to fret cloth by friction; to fret the skin.
To make rough; cause to ripple; disturb; agitate: as, to fret the surface of water.
To chafe painfully or vexatiously; irritate; worry; gall.
To be worn away, as by friction; become frayed or chafed; be wearing out or wasting.
To make way by attrition or corrosion.
To be worried; give way to chafed or irritated feelings; speak peevishly and complainingly.
To be in commotion or agitation, as water; boil, bubble, or work as in fermentation; hence, to work as angry feelings; rankle.
noun.
A caul of silver or gold wire, sometimes ornamented with precious stones, worn by ladies in the middle ages.
noun.
A piece of interlaced or perforated ornamental work.
noun.
A kind of ornament much employed in Grecian art and in sundry modifications common in various other styles.
noun.
In heraldry, a charge consisting of two bendlets placed in saltier and interlaced with a mascle. Also called true-lover's knot and Harrington knot.
To ornament with or as if with frets.
To make a fret of.
To fasten; bind.
To strengthen; fill.
noun.
A wearing away, abrasion, or corrosion.
noun.
A place worn or abraded, as by friction.
noun.
In med.: Chafing, as in the folds of the skin of fat children.
noun.
Herpes; tetter.
noun.
In mining, the worn side of a river-bank, where ores, or stones containing them, accumulate by being washed down the hills, and thus indicate to the miner the locality of the veins.
noun.
A state of chafing or irritation, as of the mind, temper, etc.; vexation; anger: as, he keeps himself in a continual fret.
noun.
The agitation of the surface of a fluid, as when fermenting or boiling; a rippling on the surface, as of water; a state of ebullition or effervescence, as of wine.
noun.
A flurry.
noun.
A glass composition, composed of silica, lime, soda, borax, and lead, used as a glaze by potters.
noun.
In musical instruments of the lute and viol class, a small ridge of wood, ivory, metal, or other material, set across the finger-board, and serving as a fixed point for stopping or shortening the strings in playing, the fingers being applied just above it so as to press the string against it.
To provide with frets.
Punningly, in Shakspere, to worry as if by acting upon the frets of.
noun.
A frith.