fret

verb

1. (obsolete, poetic, transitive)Especially when describing animals: to consume, devour, or eat.

   “At the beginning God gaue the dome him ſelfe / That Adam and Eue and all them that ſewed, / Shuld dye down right and dwell in pyne after, / If that they touched a tree and the frute eaten, / Adam afterwarde agaynſt hys defence / freet of that frute, and forſake as it were, / The loue of our lord and his lore bothe, [...]”

   “Their hearts alreadie fretted and cankered at the very roote, for the last disgrace received.”

   “And could we let a Light into their Bosoms, we should see them generally fretted and cankered with this secret and corroding Venom.”

2. (transitive)To chafe or irritate; to worry.

   “A Perſon of Honour, of a full Body abounding with ſharp Humours, was ſeized with an Herpes on his right Leg. [...] [I]t inflamed and ſwelled very much, many Wheals aroſe, and fretted one into another, with great Excoriation.”

   “We sometimes perform an operation on the under lip [...] in consequence of / Cancer Labii [cancer of the lips], / Which disease generally arises from the use of a pipe, and the manner in which it happens is this:—the adhesive nature of the clay of which the pipe is made, causes it to adhere to the lip; at length the cuticle becomes torn off, and the continued irritation frets the sore into true cancerous disease.”

   “Had Carry preferred mere wealth, weighed by such a master, to the congenial spirit of her former lover? It fretted the young man even to think of such a possibility. And the visitors had fretted him each in some special point.”

3. (transitive)To make rough, to agitate or disturb; to cause to ripple.

   “to fret the surface of water”

   “Small lightes are ſoone blown out, huge fires abide, / And with the winde in greater furie fret: / The petty ſtreames that paie a dailie det / To their ſalt ſoveraigne with their freſh fals haſt, / Adde to his flowe, but alter not his taſt.”

4. (transitive)In the form fret out: to squander, to waste.

   “Yorke hereupon conſults with his ſpeciall friends; [...] how Yorke might get the Crowne of England, and for that cauſe how to ruine or fret out the Duke of Sommerſet; who ſtanding, they were to looke for ſtrong oppoſition.”

   “We are all hurrying down the one common stream to the great ocean of eternity: but are we performing our social duties, as citizens of the world, in sculking away into holes and corners, to fret out time and life, because God has judged fit to withdraw the favourite toy he lent us—not making us destitute—but graciously leaving in our keeping, ten thousand toys beside.”

5. (ambitransitive)To gnaw; to consume, to eat away.

   “VVhen thrid of life is almoſt fret in twaine, To giue it ſtrength breeds thankes, and wonders too.”

   “The Mines are cold where the outward Air comes in; but where not, warm. The greateſt trouble they have is by duſt, which ſpoileth their Lungs and Stomachs, and frets their Skins.”

   “You may see the surges wear and fret away the basement of the cliff against which they dash themselves, and the mass of broken rock falls into the depth and disappears, and then it is carried away by the tide as it retires.”

   “In all the present cases it is the aortic valves that are the source of the mischief. Vegetations, massive, tough, and often calcareous have formed upon these valves, and as they were drive to and fro by the blood-stream have fretted the parts with which they came into contact, and aneurysm at these spots has been the frequent result.”

6. (ambitransitive)To mine by agitating or eating away at (ore in the bank of a river).

   “Aided by its burden of detrital matter, the river frets away the rocks along its banks and thus tends to widen its channel; while, at the same time, the coarse sediment scratching along the bottom, helps to tear it up and thus deepen the bed of the river.”

   “[…]banks of rivers, with the washings of the water, there were divers times fretted out big pieces of gold. […]”

7. (ambitransitive)To be chafed or irritated; to be angry or vexed; to utter peevish expressions through irritation or worry.

   “Fret not thy ſelfe becauſe of euill doers, neither bee thou enuious againſt the workers of iniquitie.”

   “For when he knew his Rival freed and gone, / He ſwells with Wrath; he makes outrageous Moan: / He frets, he fumes, he ſtares, he ſtamps the Ground; / The hollow Tow'r with Clamours rings around: [...]”

8. (intransitive)To be worn away; to chafe; to fray.

   “A wristband frets on the edges.”

   “This, as Maury remarks, "suggested the idea that there was no running water nor abrading forces at play upon the bed of the deep sea, and consequently, if ever an electric cord were lodged upon the telegraphic plateau, there it would lie in cold abstraction; without anything to fret, chafe or wear, save alone the tooth of time."”

9. (intransitive)To be anxious, to worry.

   “With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.”

   “Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. But, after all, I shouldn't have expected nothing different. When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.”

   “Critics were vehemently outspoken; but while they fretted about looks, they missed the cleverer points in the design itself.”

   “Don't fret precious, I'm here Step away from the window Go back to sleep Lay your head down child I won't let the boogeyman come Counting bodies like sheep To the rhythm of the war drums Pay no mind to the rabble Pay no mind to the rabble Head down, go to sleep To the rhythm of the war drums”

   “Recruits have also fretted that the shares included in their offer letters could quickly become devalued if Mr. Musk succeeded in taking Twitter private.”

10. (intransitive)To be agitated; to rankle; to be in violent commotion.

    “Rancour frets in the malignant breast.”

    “Beyond Tabor, the ſmall river Luſchnitze frets over craggy rocks, covered with thick woods, through which you continue your journey for three German miles, [...]”

    “And mid-way through the channel met / Conflicting tides that foam and fret, / And high their mingled billows jet, / As spears, that, in the battle set, / Spring upward as they break.”

    “The sea frets itself around it [South Stack, Wales, UK] and gurgles in the cavern; ledges and reefs abut on it.”

11. (intransitive)To have secondary fermentation (fermentation occurring after the conversion of sugar to alcohol in beers and wine) take place.

    “It is important to allow beer to flatten, after it has ceased working. This is accomplished by leaving the casks open, when the small floating particles of yeast part with their fixed air, lose their buoyancy, and sink to the bottom. [...] The beer having thus deposited its remaining yeast will not be liable to fret.”

12. (transitive)To decorate or ornament, especially with an interlaced or interwoven pattern, or (architecture) with carving or relief (raised) work.

    “In a long purple pall, whose ſkirt with gold, / Was fretted all about, ſhe was arayd, [...]”

13. (transitive)To form a pattern on; to variegate.

    “Decius. Here lyes the Eaſt: doth not the Day breake heere? [...] Cin[na]. O pardon, Sir, it doth; and yon grey Lines, / That fret the Clouds, are Meſſengers of Day.”

    “The sun shone brilliantly through the trembling leaves, birds of many colors flitted from spray to spray, butterflies and bright insects crossed the fretted work of light and shade.”

14. (transitive)To cut through with a fretsaw, to create fretwork.
15. To bind, to tie, originally with a loop or ring.
16. (transitive)# To fit frets on to (a musical instrument).

    “to fret a guitar”

17. (transitive)To press down the string behind a fret.

    “Note that right next to the headstock, the boxes may utilize some open notes in place of fretting with the pointer finger because the nut will effectively fret the notes for you[…].”

noun

1. Agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or some other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.

   “The place was a little below Gravesend, quite out of the fret and bustle of the narrower river, and there was not even a steamboat pier to disturb the quiet of this cluster of harmless houses, though they watched upon their beach the passage of great navies down the greatest thoroughfare of England.”

2. Agitation of the mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation.

   “He keeps his mind in a continual fret.”

   “Yet then did Gildon dravv his venal quill; / I vviſh'd the man a dinner, and ſate ſtill: / Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; / I never anſvver'd, I vvas not in debt: / If vvant provok'd, or madneſs made them print, / I vvag'd no vvar with Bedlam or the Mint.”

   “It was our good fortune last autumn to escape from the feverish excitement and moral tension of this vast metropolis, from the hurry and fret of business, the glut of pleasure, the satiety of delight, the weariness of politics, and the exhausting duties of our critical function, into that favoured corner of our fortunate island, the West of England; [...]”

   “And the preacher who delivered the discourse went home and fretted; his wife, children and servants being witnesses. Sanctification takes the spirit of fret out of the heart.”

   “After their introduction to Orlando, Celia wonders why Rosalind should be so morose ([William Shakespeare's As You Like It,] I.iii.10–19): [...] In her effort to cheer Rosalind, Celia compares these frets to burs, meaning the rough and prickly flowerheads: "They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery."”

3. Herpes; tetter (“any of various pustular skin conditions”).

   “Vesiculæ, or vesicles, are small, circumscribed elevations of the scarf-skin, containing serum, at first (both in their coats and contents) transparent, afterwards white and opaque, and terminating in the formation of scurf or thin scales. Under this head are ranged varicella (chicken-pox), sudamina, eczema (red fret), herpes (fret), scabies (itch).”

   “To cure Gripes in Horses. This disorder goes by different names in different districts of the country; as fret, from the uneasiness attending it; bots, from its being thought to arise from these animals or worms, etc. [...] In speaking of the medicine for gripes, or the flatulent colic sometimes termed fret, Mr. White mentions, domestic remedies may be employed when proper medicines cannot be procured in time.”

4. (in-plural)The worn sides of riverbanks, where ores or stones containing them accumulate after being washed down from higher ground, which thus indicate to miners the locality of veins of ore.

   “Then we obſerve the Frets in the Banks of Rivers that are newly made by any great Land-Flood, which uſually are then very clean, to ſee, if happily we can diſcover any metalline Stones in the Sides and Bottoms thereof, together with the Caſt of the Country (i.e. any earth of a different colour from the reſt of the Bank), which is a great help to direct us, which ſide or hill to ſearch into.”

   “After any great land-flood, in which it is supposed there are usually some new frets made in the banks of the rivers, these are carefully examined, to see whether any metalline stones may be found […] When the frets in the sides of rivers have been traced in vain, after searcher after a mine goes […]”

5. An ornamental pattern consisting of repeated vertical and horizontal lines, often in relief.

   “Went to visit our good neighbor, Mr. Bohun, whose whole house is a cabinet of all elegancies, especially Indian; [...] [A]bove all, his lady's cabinet is adorned on the fret, ceiling, and chimney-piece with Mr. Gibbons's best carving.”

   “Remove spills from grill frets with a cloth and brush the frets with a stiff brush when dry and cold.”

   “Square unit of nondescript frets which interlace in the centre to form a cruciform shape.”

6. A saltire interlaced with a mascle.

   “DIAPERED, or Diapre, in heraldry, the dividing of a field in planes, like fret-work, and filling the ſame with variety of figures. This chiefly obtains on bordures, which are diapered or fretted over, and the frets charged with things proper for bordures.”

7. One of the pieces of metal, plastic or wood across the neck of a guitar or other string instrument that marks where a finger should be positioned to depress a string as it is played.

   “The long-necked Egyptian Nefer was certainly depicted in the 4th dynasty; and wall-painting of the time of Moses, preserved in the British Museum, shows that it then had frets.”

   “The frets of the lute marked whole tones, while those of the guitar were a semi-tone apart.”

8. (dialectal, obsolete)A ferrule, a ring.
9. A channel, a strait; a fretum.

   “I came in fine to the fourth part of the world, commonly called America, which by all deſcriptions I found to be an Iſland enuironed around about with the Sea, hauing on the Southſide of it, the frete, or ſtraight of Magellan, [...]”

   “The river Velino, after having found its way from among the rocks where it falls, runs into the Nera. The channel of this laſt river is white with rocks, and the ſurface of it, for a long ſpace, covered with froth and bubbles; for it runs all along upon the fret, and is ſtill breaking againſt the ſtones that oppoſe its paſſage: [...]”

10. (rare)A channel or passage created by the sea.
11. (Northumbria)A fog or mist at sea, or coming inland from the sea.

    “The wind brings a fret off the ocean; not cold, but achingly damp.”

12. (countable, uncountable)Förster resonance energy transfer
13. (countable, uncountable)fluorescence resonance energy transfer, which is a type of the Förster phenomenon where one or both of the partners in the energy transfer are fluorescent chromophores

    “2010, DeRocco et al., "Four-color single-molecule fluorescence with noncovalent dye labeling to monitor dynamic multimolecular complexes", BioTechniques, vol 49, no 5, pg. 807. FRET interactions among four dyes on DNA have been recorded with a confocal microscope using photodiodes for single point detection.”