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Etymology and origin of the English word fret

English has three main words spelled fret: the verb meaning to gnaw and to worry, the ornamental interlaced pattern, and the ridge on the fingerboard of a guitar.[1][2][3][4]

Pronunciation

fret1 to gnaw, worry

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 725 Beowulf
Inherited from
Proto-Germanic *fraetaną via Middle English, Old English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *fraetaną

Etymology

The verb meaning to gnaw and to worry is inherited from Middle English freten,[6][4][2] inherited from Old English fretan (“to devour, eat up, consume”),[3][7][2][8][9] inherited from Proto-Germanic *fraetaną, a compound of *fra- (“completely”) and *etaną (“to eat”),[7][10][1] the source of for- and eat.[3][11][12] Its cognates are Middle Low German vrēten and Middle Dutch vrēten (now vreten), Old High German frezzan (now fressen) and Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (fraitan).[3][2][11][7] Holthausen compares Latin peredō (“to eat up”).[9] In Old English it was a strong verb, conjugated like etan (“to eat”), with a prefixed form gefretan.[3] Etymonline suggests that the sense of wearing away by rubbing may owe something to the sound of Anglo-Norman froter (“to rub”),[7] and the MED and the Shorter Oxford likewise allow for an Anglo-Norman verb meaning to rub behind some senses.[6][13] The noun is probably from the verb.[6][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To eat, devour, chiefly of animals: in Beowulf, which Barnhart dates to about 725.[3][2] Etymonline notes that the Old English word was used of monsters and Vikings, and in Middle English of animals eating.[7] The Middle English form is recorded from 1127.[2]

Semantic evolution

The figurative use, of passions or sins that "devour" or torment the heart, is found from about 1175, in the Ormulum;[3][2][7] the sense "to gnaw" from before 1200,[3] and the slow wearing away by rust, frost, disease or water from about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.[3][2] From about 1290 it meant to chafe or irritate, and so to annoy or worry a person.[3][11] From 1551 it was used intransitively, to distress oneself, to worry.[3][7] Ayto notes that the literal sense "devour" had died out by the early 15th century, leaving the figurative ones.[1] Trench observed that English now restricts the word to the eating of the heart by care,[14] whereas German fressen is still used of animals eating.[7][1] The noun, a gnawing, is recorded from before 1420, in Lydgate's Troy Book,[2][6] and mental agitation or irritation from 1556;[3] on the fret, in a state of agitation, dates from 1679.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – Old English fretan, to eat, devour.[2][3]
  • c. 1175 – figuratively, of passions tormenting the heart.[3][2]
  • before 1200 – to gnaw.[3]
  • c. 1225 – to wear away gradually, corrode.[3][2]
  • c. 1290 – to chafe, irritate; to annoy or worry.[3]
  • before 1420 – noun, a gnawing.[2][6]
  • 1551 – intransitive, to worry, distress oneself.[3]
  • 1556 – noun, agitation of mind, irritation.[3]
  • 1597 – to wear (a way, a channel) by erosion.[3]
  • 1679 – on the fret, agitated, ill-humoured.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To be constantly worried or uneasy; to brood: He fretted all night about the interview.[15][4][16]
  2. To trouble or vex someone; to irritate.[15][4][16]
  3. To wear or eat away by rubbing or by chemical action; to erode or corrode.[15][4][16]
  4. To make a channel or passage by wearing away.[3]
  5. To gnaw, as a rodent does.[16][3]
  6. (obsolete) To eat, devour.[4][3]

Noun

  1. A state of anxiety or irritation: She was in a fret over the missing tickets.[4][15][3]
  2. A wearing away; a worn spot.[4][3]

Word family

  • fretful
  • fretter

fret2 interlaced ornament

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1340 Rolle, Pricke of Conscience
Borrowed from
Old French frete

Etymology

The ornamental pattern is probably borrowed from Old French frete (“interlaced work, trelliswork”),[3][7][2][13][16][11] now frette.[3][13][17] The verb, to adorn with such work, is borrowed from Old French freter, chiefly in its past participle freté, which matches Anglo-Latin frectatus and frictatus;[3][13][6][2] the OED thinks the English verb may also have been formed on the noun.[3] The Anglo-Norman noun frette is recorded from 1372, and the verb fretter, also meaning fretted with a lattice-like pattern, from about 1185.[18] The origin of the French noun is obscure.[1][11][13] Etymonline and Klein derive it from Frankish *fetur, related to Old English fetor, the source of fetter, perhaps from the idea of a decorative anklet or of things bound together.[7][17] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate takes the verb as a back-formation from the Middle English participle fretted (“adorned”), from Anglo-Norman fretté, the past participle of a verb meaning to tie, probably from Vulgar Latin *firmitō, from Latin firmus (“firm”).[19] The OED rejects the common view that the words continue Old English frætwe (“ornaments”) and frætwian (“to adorn”) as impossible in sound, though the Old English verb may have survived in speech and been confused with the French one.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To adorn with interlaced work, especially gold or silver embroidery: 1340, in Rolle's Pricke of Conscience.[3] Barnhart dates the verb to before 1376.[2] The noun, an ornamental net, especially of jewels or flowers for the hair, is first recorded about 1385, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women.[3][2][20]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English a fret was an ornament or ornamental border, or a netlike covering or band for the hair.[6][13] Heraldry took over both the noun, a figure of crossing bendlets, and the verb, to interlace, in 1572.[3] Before 1616 Shakespeare used the verb in Julius Caesar for marking with a pattern.[3] In 17th-century architecture to fret a ceiling was to adorn it with carved or embossed patterns.[3][11] From 1626 the noun was such carved ornament;[3] from 1664 it was an ornamental pattern of straight lines joined at right angles.[3] Fretwork is recorded from 1601,[2] and fretsaw, for cutting such patterns in wood, from the mid 19th century.[21]

Timeline

  • 1340 – verb, to adorn with interlaced work or embroidery.[3]
  • c. 1385 – noun, an ornamental net, especially for the hair.[3][2]
  • 1572 – heraldry, a figure of interlaced bendlets; to interlace.[3]
  • before 1616 – to chequer or mark with a pattern.[3]
  • 1626 – carved ornament in ceilings.[3]
  • 1664 – a pattern of straight lines meeting at right angles.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An ornamental pattern of short straight lines meeting usually at right angles.[4][3]
  2. Ornamental interlaced work; fretwork.[4][13]
  3. (historical) A net of gold, silver or jewels worn over a woman's hair.[4][13][3]
  4. (heraldry) A figure formed of crossing diagonal bands, or bendlets.[13][3]

Verb

  1. To decorate with interlaced designs or carved patterns, especially a ceiling.[4][13][3]
  2. To mark with a pattern or network.[4][3]

Word family

  • fretwork
  • fretsaw
  • fretty
  • fretted

fret3 ridge on a fingerboard

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1500
Borrowed from
Middle French frete

Etymology

The ridge on a fingerboard is of unknown origin.[16][13][12][1][11] It is perhaps borrowed from Middle French frete (“ferrule, ring”),[4][2][7][3] which Merriam-Webster takes as probably Germanic and related to Old English fetor (“fetter”).[4] Etymonline compares fret (“a tie or lace”), recorded from the early 14th century, and freten (“to bind, fasten”), from the mid 14th century.[7][6] The OED also allows a connection with an obsolete English verb meaning to rub.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bar or ridge on the fingerboard of a stringed instrument: about 1500 in Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster;[2][7][4] the revised OED's first quotation is from before 1527.[3]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that a fret was formerly a ring of gut, and is now a bar or ridge of wood or metal on the fingerboard.[3] The verb, to furnish an instrument with frets, follows in 1603, in Shakespeare's Hamlet,[3][4] and to press a string against a fret is recorded from 1814.[3] The Shorter Oxford notes the compound fretboard, a fingerboard with frets.[13]

Timeline

  • c. 1500 – a ridge on the fingerboard of a stringed instrument.[2][7][4]
  • 1603 – verb, to furnish (a guitar) with frets.[3]
  • 1814 – verb, to press a string against a fret.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. One of the raised ridges across the fingerboard of a guitar or similar instrument, which mark where to press the strings for each note.[4][13][3]

Verb

  1. To fit an instrument with frets.[4][13][3]
  2. To press a string against a fret to play a note.[4][3]

Word family

  • fretless
  • fretboard

Usage notes

Several minor words are also spelled fret.[3][13] In northern England a fret or sea fret is a mist or drizzle coming in from the sea, of unknown origin.[13][3][22] An iron hoop round the nave of a cartwheel was a fret in Yorkshire and Cheshire, from Old French frete (“ferrule, ring”).[13][22] Fret for a strait, from Latin fretum, was used from 1576 to 1661.[3][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  9. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
  15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  17. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  18. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  19. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  20. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  21. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  22. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

  • stall · also from Proto-Germanic
  • warmth · also from Proto-Germanic
  • foam · also from Proto-Germanic
  • mold · also from Proto-Germanic
  • worm · also from Proto-Germanic
  • dwarf · also from Proto-Germanic
  • deed · also from Proto-Germanic
  • crab · also from Proto-Germanic
Cite this entry

“Fret.” Etymologically, 1 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/fret. Accessed 1 Nov. 2026.

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