(v. t.) To rub; to wear away by friction; to chafe; to gall; hence, to eat away; to gnaw; as, to fret cloth; to fret a piece of gold or other metal; a worm frets the plants of a ship.
(v. t.) To impair; to wear away; to diminish.
(v. t.) To make rough, agitate, or disturb; to cause to ripple; as, to fret the surface of water.
(v. t.) To tease; to irritate; to vex.
(v. i.) To be worn away; to chafe; to fray; as, a wristband frets on the edges.
(v. i.) To eat in; to make way by corrosion.
(v. i.) To be agitated; to be in violent commotion; to rankle; as, rancor frets in the malignant breast.
(v. i.) To be vexed; to be chafed or irritated; to be angry; to utter peevish expressions.
(n.) The agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.
(n.) Agitation of mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation; as, he keeps his mind in a continual fret.
(n.) Herpes; tetter.
(n.) The worn sides of river banks, where ores, or stones containing them, accumulate by being washed down from the hills, and thus indicate to the miners the locality of the veins.
(v. t.) To ornament with raised work; to variegate; to diversify.
(n.) Ornamental work in relief, as carving or embossing. See Fretwork.
(n.) An ornament consisting of smmall fillets or slats intersecting each other or bent at right angles, as in classical designs, or at obilique angles, as often in Oriental art.
(n.) The reticulated headdress or net, made of gold or silver wire, in which ladies in the Middle Ages confined their hair.
(n.) A saltire interlaced with a mascle.
(n.) A short piece of wire, or other material fixed across the finger board of a guitar or a similar instrument, to indicate where the finger is to be placed.
(v. t.) To furnish with frets, as an instrument of music.
Example Sentences:
(1) The FSA was fretting about solvency when liquidity was the problem.
(2) She finds indoor activities to discourage the kids from playing outside on the foulest days, and plans holidays abroad as often as possible – but still frets about what their years in Delhi may do to her children’s health.
(3) It might seem absurd, but she also fretted about the horrendous poll tax bills received by people she knew, people she knew couldn't pay.
(4) And in a broader sense, the sort of Conservatives who think intelligently and strategically – and there are more of them than you think – fret that a bearded 66-year-old socialist has ignited political debate in a way that absolutely nobody in the mainstream predicted.
(5) It certainly saved her fretting over her debut sex scene.
(6) Moyes had already described how he had fretted about his attire when Ferguson initially invited him round to discuss the biggest job in English football and how the colour had drained from his face when he was offered it.
(7) For long periods Argentina had been stifled by a fine counterpunching opposition, but it would be a little hasty to fret too much about them after this performance.
(8) Chipmaker ARM is the biggest faller in London, as analysts fret about a slowdown in royalty revenues.
(9) "I used to be really nervous and sit in my dressing room and fret about a scene," he told Rolling Stone .
(10) Hewitt, playing in probably his last Davis Cup for his country at 34 before retiring from the game at the Australian Open in January, added: “We were able to keep Andy out there for a long time, but he’s still favourite [on Sunday].” For the British team, the Murrays’ win lifted a considerable weight off the shoulders of the captain, Leon Smith, who shared the crowd’s anxiety at several key moments of the match, none more fretful than when Andy Murray failed to serve it out in the fourth set and then when they were unable to convert the first match point in the subsequent tie-break.
(11) While Victorians celebrated the empire on which the sun would never set with successive jubilees (golden, 1887, and diamond, 1897), many readers fretted over foreign (increasingly German) threats to the harmony of English life.
(12) On Tuesday, for every wealthy Kolonaki resident fretting about their cash, there was a less well-off state or company employee convinced it would not come to that.
(13) They fretted as political ambition was given rocket boosters by technology.
(14) But better economic sentiment means more market fretting over the Fed's huge stimulus programme being scaled back.
(15) • Follow the Guardian's World Cup team on Twitter • Sign up to play our daily Fantasy Football game • Stats centre: Get the lowdown on every player • The latest semi-final news, features and more People get fretful.
(16) • Three graphs to stop smartphone fans fretting about market share
(17) After dinner she drove him to the railway station while fretting over leaving her baby son sleeping at home.
(18) Significant differences in the shapes of the cathodic Tafel slopes were also seen with cylinders with different surface conditions, and static versus fretting plates.
(19) Despite their jokey exterior, most had big things on their mind, fretting over marriages and babies, breakups and single life; less "grossout" comedy than "freakout".
(20) City analysts still fret that Bailey has either taken on too much or is an unproven chief executive.
Vex
Definition:
(v. t.) To to/s back and forth; to agitate; to disquiet.
(v. t.) To make angry or annoyed by little provocations; to irritate; to plague; to torment; to harass; to afflict; to trouble; to tease.
(v. t.) To twist; to weave.
(v. i.) To be irritated; to fret.
Example Sentences:
(1) De Boer's successor's first tasks will be to keep the US aboard the negotiations and to clear up the vexed question of the legal status of the Copenhagen accord , the deal struck at Copenhagen by a small group but not endorsed by a majority of countries.
(2) There is also the vexed question of what should be the legal form of any Paris agreement, a subject likely to keep negotiators up late into the night at the conference, and some anxiety among the hosts over whether the text of a deal can be formulated in due time.
(3) But the bigger question, the one that has vexed historians, biographers and holocaust experts for eight decades, is why she was there.
(4) Cs (2 mM) reduced diastolic depolarization (DD) at different [Ca]O and in 10.8 mM [Ca]O revealed an oscillatory potential (VOS) and the decay of a prolonged depolarization (Vex).
(5) The past few days have been vexing ones for reporting guidelines, voluntary or legal.
(6) The present data also highlighted the vexed relationship between stress and seizure control, which needs to be further investigated.
(7) Another vexed national question in the coming months will be this one: who is the most worthy winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
(8) Delivery of monoclonal antibodies to solid tumors is a vexing problem that must be solved if these antibodies are to realize their promise in therapy.
(9) Pathologists without considerable experience in the diagnosis of bone tumors find this question especially vexing.
(10) Caffeine (5 mM) abolishes Vos and Ios and increases Vex and Iex (as DOXO does), and adding DOXO slightly increased Vex and Iex.
(11) Posttraumatic joint stiffness is particularly vexing in the small joints.
(12) In this spirit, a vignette is offered from a clinical area in which questions of "health" and "illness" are particularly vexing at present.
(13) Some might argue that our eyes weren't quite on the ball back in '89: never mind the cataclysmic political upheaval in eastern Europe – the results of which still echo around the world – let's devote ourselves to a page concerned with vexed questions such as: why is water wet?
(14) The draft provides scant details on the vexed subject of accountability for emission reduction programmes.
(15) Nowhere was the commission’s balancing act more finely weighted than on the vexed question of bioenergy, which Cañete admitted was “a clear problem”.
(16) The top Chinese negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said there was also a possibility of advances on the vexed issued of transparency – how to monitor, report and verify each nation's emissions to ensure they are honouring their pledges.
(17) But now it’s Isis who are the insurgents,” leaving the peshmerga with the vexing challenge of defending and holding territory.
(18) 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.
(19) Discussed here are some contours of the vexing problem of adequate minority participation in the health professions and a brief discussion of some programs that appear to be working.
(20) After the creed and some Benjamin Britten, and a blessing and a long round of applause, the man charged with holding together the fractious global Anglican communion as it struggles with the vexed issues of women bishops and same-sex marriage processed out of the cathedral and into the bitterly cold spring afternoon.