fret

Especially when describing animals: to consume, devour, or eat.

At the beginning God gaue the dome him ſelfe / That Adam and Eue and all them that ſewed, / Shuld dye down right and dwell in pyne after, / If that they touched a tree and the frute eaten, / Adam afterwarde agaynſt hys defence / freet of that frute, and forſake as it were, / The loue of our lord and his lore bothe, [...]

Their hearts alreadie fretted and cankered at the very roote, for the last disgrace received.

To chafe or irritate; to worry.

A Perſon of Honour, of a full Body abounding with ſharp Humours, was ſeized with an Herpes on his right Leg. [...] [I]t inflamed and ſwelled very much, many Wheals aroſe, and fretted one into another, with great Excoriation.

We sometimes perform an operation on the under lip [...] in consequence of / Cancer Labii [cancer of the lips], / Which disease generally arises from the use of a pipe, and the manner in which it happens is this:—the adhesive nature of the clay of which the pipe is made, causes it to adhere to the lip; at length the cuticle becomes torn off, and the continued irritation frets the sore into true cancerous disease.

To make rough, to agitate or disturb; to cause to ripple.

to fret the surface of water

Small lightes are ſoone blown out, huge fires abide, / And with the winde in greater furie fret: / The petty ſtreames that paie a dailie det / To their ſalt ſoveraigne with their freſh fals haſt, / Adde to his flowe, but alter not his taſt.

In the form fret out: to squander, to waste.

Yorke hereupon conſults with his ſpeciall friends; [...] how Yorke might get the Crowne of England, and for that cauſe how to ruine or fret out the Duke of Sommerſet; who ſtanding, they were to looke for ſtrong oppoſition.

We are all hurrying down the one common stream to the great ocean of eternity: but are we performing our social duties, as citizens of the world, in sculking away into holes and corners, to fret out time and life, because God has judged fit to withdraw the favourite toy he lent us—not making us destitute—but graciously leaving in our keeping, ten thousand toys beside.

To gnaw; to consume, to eat away.

VVhen thrid of life is almoſt fret in twaine, To giue it ſtrength breeds thankes, and wonders too.

The Mines are cold where the outward Air comes in; but where not, warm. The greateſt trouble they have is by duſt, which ſpoileth their Lungs and Stomachs, and frets their Skins.

Agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or some other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.

Now though Cider uſed in my Method ſhould not ferment at all, till it come into the Bottle, and then but a little; yet the Cauſe of Fermentation being in a great Degree taken away, the reſt can do no conſiderable Harm to thoſe who drink it, [...] It is in your Power to give the Cider juſt as much fret as you pleaſe, and no more; and that by ſeveral ways: For either you may bottle it ſooner or later, as you pleaſe: Or you may bottle it from two Taps in your Veſſel, and that from the higher Tap will have leſs Fret, and the lower more: [...]

The place was a little below Gravesend, quite out of the fret and bustle of the narrower river, and there was not even a steamboat pier to disturb the quiet of this cluster of harmless houses, though they watched upon their beach the passage of great navies down the greatest thoroughfare of England.

Agitation of the mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation.

He keeps his mind in a continual fret.

Yet then did Gildon dravv his venal quill; / I vviſh'd the man a dinner, and ſate ſtill: / Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; / I never anſvver'd, I vvas not in debt: / If vvant provok'd, or madneſs made them print, / I vvag'd no vvar with Bedlam or the Mint.

Herpes; tetter (“any of various pustular skin conditions”).

Vesiculæ, or vesicles, are small, circumscribed elevations of the scarf-skin, containing serum, at first (both in their coats and contents) transparent, afterwards white and opaque, and terminating in the formation of scurf or thin scales. Under this head are ranged varicella (chicken-pox), sudamina, eczema (red fret), herpes (fret), scabies (itch).

To cure Gripes in Horses. This disorder goes by different names in different districts of the country; as fret, from the uneasiness attending it; bots, from its being thought to arise from these animals or worms, etc. [...] In speaking of the medicine for gripes, or the flatulent colic sometimes termed fret, Mr. White mentions, domestic remedies may be employed when proper medicines cannot be procured in time.

The worn sides of riverbanks, where ores or stones containing them accumulate after being washed down from higher ground, which thus indicate to miners the locality of veins of ore.

Then we obſerve the Frets in the Banks of Rivers that are newly made by any great Land-Flood, which uſually are then very clean, to ſee, if happily we can diſcover any metalline Stones in the Sides and Bottoms thereof, together with the Caſt of the Country (i.e. any earth of a different colour from the reſt of the Bank), which is a great help to direct us, which ſide or hill to ſearch into.

After any great land-flood, in which it is supposed there are usually some new frets made in the banks of the rivers, these are carefully examined, to see whether any metalline stones may be found […] When the frets in the sides of rivers have been traced in vain, after searcher after a mine goes […]

An ornamental pattern consisting of repeated vertical and horizontal lines, often in relief.

Went to visit our good neighbor, Mr. Bohun, whose whole house is a cabinet of all elegancies, especially Indian; [...] [A]bove all, his lady's cabinet is adorned on the fret, ceiling, and chimney-piece with Mr. Gibbons's best carving.

Remove spills from grill frets with a cloth and brush the frets with a stiff brush when dry and cold.

A saltire interlaced with a mascle.

DIAPERED, or Diapre, in heraldry, the dividing of a field in planes, like fret-work, and filling the ſame with variety of figures. This chiefly obtains on bordures, which are diapered or fretted over, and the frets charged with things proper for bordures.