(v. t.) To rub; to wear off, or wear into shreds, by rubbing; to fret, as cloth; as, a deer is said to fray her head.
(v. i.) To rub.
(v. i.) To wear out or into shreads, or to suffer injury by rubbing, as when the threads of the warp or of the woof wear off so that the cross threads are loose; to ravel; as, the cloth frays badly.
(n.) A fret or chafe, as in cloth; a place injured by rubbing.
Example Sentences:
(1) The appointment of the mayor of London's brother, who formally becomes a Cabinet Office minister, is one of a series of moves designed to strengthen the political operation in Downing Street and to patch up the prime minister's frayed links with the Conservative party.
(2) In comparison with the controls, the isoproterenol-treated (Group A), the Ca-treated (Group B), and the diltiazem-posttreated (Groups E and F) showed severe myocardial cell damage, such as sarcolemmal disruption, mitochondrial swelling, intramitochondrial electron-dense granules, membranous structures along mitochondrial cristae, thickening or close packing of the Z-lines, separation of cell junctions, frayed myofibrils, clumping of chromatin, and intracellular fluid accumulation.
(3) Carefully pull the frayed seam over the original seam line and pin in place.
(4) Miliband steps back into the fray as ex-Labour MP Chris Mullin said the party should bring back "grown ups" such as ex-chancellor Alistair Darling, while Tony Blair's former spin chief Alastair Campbell said Labour had made a mistake by failing to defend Gordon Brown's economic record.
(5) De Blasio and Bratton have promised to mend the frayed relations between police officers and the city's minority communities.
(6) Failing to get her voice heard above the fray is the biggest danger.
(7) On the frayed, far south-western outskirts of Bogotá, the largest, poorest and most violent barrio in the Colombian capital stretches into the haze up the mountainside as far as the eye can see.
(8) But when I check in a week later, at the height of the expenses storm, the optimism is sounding a tad frayed.
(9) These included torn or frayed menisci and those which were displaced, usually in a mesial direction.
(10) The shops on Main Street were mostly empty, paint fraying on the window panes.
(11) The fraying may be a consequence of proteolytic processing of the precursor of the inhibitor protein during entry into the mitochondrion.
(12) Relations between the bank and the Cambodian government have frayed over plans by a property developer to fill in a lake in the middle of Phnom Penh to build luxury flats and high-end shops.
(13) The Al Ahly ultras say they will rejoin the fray when the time is right.
(14) If you only have an 20cm tin you can use that instead, but don't use all the batter – about 80% will suffice – otherwise you'll end up with a volcanic overspill, cake soldered to the floor of the oven and a frayed temper.
(15) Laszlo Andor, the EU's employment commissioner, warned that record unemployment and fraying welfare systems in southern Europe risk creating a new divide in the continent.
(16) But we may be permitted to hope there is now a chance that something of the old Canada, committed to moderation and multiculturalism at home and to multilateralism and cooperation abroad, will re-emerge from the fray.
(17) Type II alveolar cells increased in number and showed vacuolization, fraying and membrane disruption of their lamellar inclusions.
(18) But it's fair to say a fondness for sniping games marks me out as a coward who'd rather take potshots from a distance than actually climb down from the tree and enter the fray like a man, a theory backed up by the fact that while I love sniping, I detest "stealth games" (because it's scary when you get caught) and "boss fights" where you have to battle some gargantuan show-off 10 times your height who keeps knocking you on your arse with his tail.
(19) Now that Obama has thrown the dice and joined the fray in Syria, Britain will feel increasing pressure to do more to help.
(20) Both dyed and undyed sutures were consistently better than surgical gut with respect to pliability, strength, ease of passage, ease of tying, fraying, knot security, and overall handling.