(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.
Melee
Definition:
(n.) A fight in which the combatants are mingled in one confused mass; a hand to hand conflict; an affray.
Example Sentences:
(1) The original referred to Meles Zenawi as president of Ethiopia.
(2) Meles Zenawi , the cerebral ruler of Ethiopia for the last 21 years, is a man with many reputations.
(3) August 1995 After poorly contested elections, the EPRDF swept to power; the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was proclaimed, and Meles became Ethiopia's first prime minister.
(4) Meles introduced a controversial form of ethnic nationalism and, from 1998-2000, went to war with neighbouring Eritrea, a conflict that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
(5) Some analysts have claimed that Meles will not return to power at all, after a senior member of the TPLF, Sibhat Nega, stated that the party was working on a power succession and that the regime could continue in the event of "individuals" dying or leaving the government.
(6) There have been a flurry of searches and social media interactions on the fate of Meles by Ethiopians – including a popular #WhereIsMeles hashtag on twitter, but his absence from government is of concern to donors, who pump almost $4bn (£2.6bn) of aid into Ethiopia every year.
(7) Two months later, an interim government was formed with Meles as transitional president.
(8) When it sounded the United goalkeeper leapt to his feet and grabbed Martin Skrtel, sparking a post-match melee, before collapsing in pain once again.
(9) True enough, the driving force behind the dam is former prime minister Meles Zenawi , who ran the country for more than two decades.
(10) The broadcast said Meles died just before midnight on Monday after contracting an infection.
(11) In the ensuing melee, Giles described Westra van Holthe as not having the “capacity, capability or the tenacity or the professionalism to be the chief minister”.
(12) At the same time, however, Meles's clampdown on dissent – particularly in the media, among civil society groups and from opposition politicians – has caused widespread discontent, especially in urban centres.
(13) Meles had not been seen in public for about two months.
(14) crescens) was demonstrated as the causative agent in 5 cases of disease-in the badger (Meles meles), the otter (Lutra lutra) and the fox (Vulpes vulpes).
(15) As any graduate will remember, those years at university were just as much about juggling a melee of friendships as it was about studying.
(16) The result meant a fourth term as prime minister for Meles, but human rights groups questioned the poll's validity, citing reported irregularities .
(17) On the vexed issue of longer term finance, the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi presented an offer to reduce developing country demands by 75% to $100bn a year from 2020, in return for guarantees of how the money would be distributed.
(18) One plan from the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, sets out how developed countries could scale up their funding to $50bn by 2015 and $100bn by 2020.
(19) Meles, now 57, came to power in 1991 after his Tigray People's Liberation Front waged a successful war, alongside the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, that toppled the dictatorship of the Soviet-backed Mengistu Haile Mariam.
(20) However, Meles had begun a generational shift in the EPRDF’s leadership, bringing new leaders to the fore – including Hailemariam as his deputy – in the two years preceding his death.