to feel or express worry, annoyance, discontent, or the like: Fretting about the lost ring isn't going to help.
2.
to cause corrosion; gnaw into something: acids that fret at the strongest metals.
3.
to make a way by gnawing, corrosion, wearing away, etc.: The river frets at its banks until a new channel is formed.
4.
to become eaten, worn, or corroded (often followed by away ): Limestone slowly frets away under pounding by the wind and rain.
5.
to move in agitation or commotion, as water: water fretting over the stones of a brook.
verb (used with object)
6.
to torment; irritate, annoy, or vex: You mustn't fret yourself about that.
7.
to wear away or consume by gnawing, friction, rust, corrosives, etc.: the ocean fretting its shores.
8.
to form or make by wearing away a substance: The river had fretted an underground passage.
9.
to agitate (water): Strong winds were fretting the channel.
noun
10.
an irritated state of mind; annoyance; vexation.
11.
erosion; corrosion; gnawing.
12.
a worn or eroded place.
Origin: before 900;Middle Englishfreten,Old Englishfretan to eat up, consume; cognate with Old Saxonfretan,Gothicfraitan,Old High Germanfrezzan (Germanfressen)
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
any of the ridges of wood, metal, or string, set across the fingerboard of a guitar, lute, or similar instrument, which help the fingers to stop the strings at the correct points.
to irritate or be irritated; feel or give annoyance or vexation
4.
to eat away or be eaten away by chemical action; corrode
5.
(intr) (of a road surface) to become loose so that potholes develop; scab
6.
to agitate (water) or (of water) to be agitated
7.
(tr) to make by wearing away; erode
—n
8.
a state of irritation or anxiety
9.
the result of fretting; corrosion
10.
a hole or channel caused by fretting
[Old English fretan to eat; related to Old High German frezzan, Gothic fraitan, Latin peredere]
fret2 (frɛt)
—n
1.
a repetitive geometrical figure, esp one used as an ornamental border
2.
such a pattern made in relief and with numerous small openings; fretwork
3.
heraldry a charge on a shield consisting of a mascle crossed by a saltire
—vb , frets, fretting, fretted
4.
(tr) to ornament with fret or fretwork
[C14: from Old French frete interlaced design used on a shield, probably of Germanic origin]
'fretless2
—adj
fret3 (frɛt)
—n
any of several small metal bars set across the fingerboard of a musical instrument of the lute, guitar, or viol family at various points along its length so as to produce the desired notes when the strings are stopped by the fingers
O.E. fretan "eat, devour" (in O.E., used of monsters and Vikings; in M.E., used of animals' eating), from P.Gmc. compound *fra- "for-" + *etan "to eat" (cf. Du. vreton, O.H.G. freggan, Ger. fressen, Goth. fraitan). Figurative sense of "irritate, worry, eat one's heart out" is c.1200. Modern German still
distinguishes essen for humans and fressen for animals. Related: Fretted; fretting.
fret
"ornamental interlaced pattern," late 14c., from O.Fr. frete "interlaced work, trellis work," probably from Frank. *fetur (cf. O.E. fetor, O.H.G. feggara "fetter") perhaps from notion of "decorative anklet," or of materials "bound" together. The other noun, "ridge on the fingerboard of a guitar," is
c.1500 of unknown origin but possibly another sense of O.Fr. frete.