Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

fret

/fɹɛt/ verb, noun

Forms frets fretting fretted frate fretten

  1. verb (transitive, obsolete or poetic) Especially when describing animals: to consume, devour, or eat.
  2. verb (transitive) To chafe or irritate; to worry.
  3. verb (transitive) To make rough, to agitate or disturb; to cause to ripple. “the brooks fretting down their channels”
  4. verb (transitive) In the form fret out: to squander, to waste.
  5. verb (ambitransitive) To gnaw; to consume, to eat away.
  6. verb (ambitransitive) To mine by agitating or eating away at (ore in the bank of a river).
  7. verb (ambitransitive) To be chafed or irritated; to be angry or vexed; to utter peevish expressions through irritation or worry.
  8. verb (intransitive) To be worn away; to chafe; to fray. “A wristband frets on the edges.”
  9. noun Agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or some other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.
  10. noun Agitation of the mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation. “He keeps his mind in a continual fret.”
  11. noun Herpes; tetter (“any of various pustular skin conditions”).
  12. noun (mining, in the plural) 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.
  13. noun An ornamental pattern consisting of repeated vertical and horizontal lines, often in relief.
  14. noun (heraldry) A saltire interlaced with a mascle.
  15. verb (transitive) To decorate or ornament, especially with an interlaced or interwoven pattern, or (architecture) with carving or relief (raised) work.
  16. verb (transitive) To form a pattern on; to variegate.
  17. verb (transitive) To cut through with a fretsaw, to create fretwork.
  18. noun (music) One of the pieces of metal, plastic or wood across the neck of a guitar or other string instrument that marks where a finger should be positioned to depress a string as it is played.
  19. noun (obsolete or dialectal) A ferrule, a ring.
  20. verb To bind, to tie, originally with a loop or ring.

Synonyms

stew sweat lather swither worn spot Greek fret Greek key key pattern fuss niggle chafe gall eat into rankle grate choke gag rub fray scratch erode eat away

Etymology

From Middle English frēten (“to eat (at), corrode, destroy, annoy”), from Old English fretan (“to eat up, devour; to fret; to break, burst”), from Proto-West Germanic *fraetan, from Proto-Germanic *fraetaną (“to consume, devour, eat up”), from Proto-Germanic *fra- (“for-, prefix meaning ‘completely, fully’”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pro- (“forward, toward”)) + *etaną (“to eat”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”)).
The senses meaning “to chafe, rub” could also be due to sound-association with Anglo-Norman *freiter (modern dialectal French fretter), from Vulgar Latin *frictāre, frequentative of Latin fricāre, from fricō (“to chafe, rub”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreyH- (“to cut”); compare Old French froter (modern French frotter). The chief difficulty is the lack of evidence of the Old French word.
*Dutch vreten, fretten (“to devour, hog, wolf”)
*Low German freten (“to eat up”)
*German fressen (“to devour, gobble up, guzzle”)
*Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (fraitan, “to devour”)
*Swedish fräta (“to eat away, corrode, fret”)
*Danish fråse (“to gorge”)

From Middle English frēten (“to decorate”), from Old French freté, freter, fretter (“to fret (decorate with an interlacing pattern)”), from Old French fret (from fraindre (“to break”), from Latin frangō (“to break, shatter”), + Old French -er (suffix forming verbs) (from Latin -āre, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃enh₂- (“to burden, charge”)).

From Middle English freten (“to bind”), from Old French freter, from frete (“ferrule, ring”) (modern French frette). The origin of the music senses are uncertain; they are possibly from frete or from fret (“to chafe, rub”).

From Latin fretum (“channel, strait”). Doublet of fretum.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun See 1st Frith.
  2. verb To devour. [Obs.]
  3. verb 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.
  4. verb To be worn away; to chafe; to fray; as, a wristband frets on the edges.

Etymology [OE. freten to eat, consume; AS. fretan, for foretan; pref. for- + etan to eat; akin to D. vreten, OHG. frezzan, G. fressen, Sw. fräta, Goth. fra-itan. See For, and Eat, v. t.]

Etymology [OE. fretten to adorn, AS. frætwan, frætwian; akin to OS. fratah, cf. Goth. us-fratwjan to make wise, also AS. frætwe ornaments, OS. fratahi adornment.]

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “fret”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details