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Fret   Listen
noun
Fret  n.  
1.
The agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.
2.
Agitation of mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation; as, he keeps his mind in a continual fret. "Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret."
3.
Herpes; tetter.
4.
pl. (Mining) 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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books



... cash or credit — no, it aren't no good; You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die, Unless you lived your life but one day long, Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, An' never bothered what ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... quickly answered Ralph, "and still I fret and worry as if thereby I could mend the matter. But I am going to strike out for a school, and leave London to suffer the consequences of ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... and the horses, that were beginning to fret, dashed off. A smart little groom rode behind, and on reaching the farm they found another with two saddle-horses, one of them, a small, gentle Arab gelding, had a side-saddle. They rode all over the farm, and inspected the ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... foolish clown, "kill me the red humble-bee on the top of that thistle yonder; and, good Mr. Cobweb, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, Mr. Cobweb, and take care the honey-bag break not; I should be sorry to have you overflown with a honey-bag. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... never do to shut yourself up in your own room and fret. You're as pale as them there Christmas ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... asks Enright, 'to our visitin' this modern pris'ner of Chillon? We binds ourselves to say nothin' that'll fret him, or set him to beatin' his ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... good Peacock! fret not, most excellent Pythagoras! one moment more, and I am not the boy to baulk you. And here comes Harry on the gray; by George! he makes the brushwood crackle! Now for a nasty leap out of the tangled swamp! a high six-barred fence of rough trees, leaning toward him, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... fire. Nobody knows who he was; but no matter how wet the leaves, how sobby the twigs, no matter if there was no fire in a mile of the camp, that fellow could start one. Some men might get down on hands and knees, and blow it and fan it, rear and charge, and fume and fret, and yet "she wouldn't burn." But this fellow would come, kick it all around, scatter it, rake it together again, shake it up a little, and oh, how it burned! The little flames would bite the twigs ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... is it to live, so sweet To hear the ripple of the bobolink, To smell the clover blossoms white and pink, To feel oneself far from the dusty street, From dusty souls, from all the flare and fret Of living, and the ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley

... 'Don't fret, it's no great matter, my lord,' said my father. 'I shall be soon out of the way; but if you would be so kind to speak a word for my boy here, and that I could afford, while the life is in me, bring my other boy back ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... "Don't fret, Juanita," reassured Kennedy. "We shall find your mistress for you. She will be all right. You had better go back to the apartment and wait. Walter look up the next train to Rockledge while ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... minute. We kep him in the Bridewell for the night; and he's just been brought over here for the court martial. Don't fret, mum: he slep like a child, and has made a ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... is not so childish as to fret after a toy he cannot have. Come, my lad, there is plenty to do. We must make use of the evening sun to get everything possible dry. Come and help. Wet clothes and wet ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... mother that, for my part, I felt sartain there were some secrets that wouldn't even be allowed to come out at Judgment Day, for fear of turning heaven into t'other place; and that this was one of 'em. She always used to fret at that, however. ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... should," said John, with equanimity. "Let Lionel Verner produce it, and I'll vacate the next hour. That will never turn up: don't you fret yourself, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... be inferred from these premises, that in the small body of Mr Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. As certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr Tappertit would sometimes fume within that precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to remark, in reference to any one ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... not fret, little sister; I am just as much obliged; and perchance some poor fellow not so fortunate as I may have ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... Connla. "He is speaking to a high woman that death or old age will never come to," she said. "I am asking him to come to Magh Mell, the Pleasant Plain where the triumphant king is living, and there he will be a king for ever without sorrow or fret. Come with me, Connla of the Red Hair," she said, "of the fair freckled neck and of the ruddy cheek; come with me, and your body will not wither from its youth and ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... within her soul; and if her ears were silence, there was music within her heart. She was brighter than the sun which she could not see, and sweeter than the songs which she could not hear. She was joyous as a bird in its narrow cage, and never did she fret at the bars which bound her. And, like the bird that sings at midnight, her cheery soul sang ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... positively homely, and so on to the end of the day's or week's or month's chapter? If, when we know that a man is a blatant vaporer, we simply let him vapor, and mind our own business; if, having gauged the measure of a woman's mind, and found it only an inch deep, we do not fret our souls by vain dredgings in a channel to-day that will fill up by to-morrow; if we give the fool the benefit of his license; and expend thought and care upon that which is hopeful and profitable—do ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... me, for I'm a old standard, if I never were good for much. Maybe I might ha' done better if things had happened in a different fashion; but the Lord knows all. I'd like a hymn at the grave, Jack, if the Vicar has no objections, and do thou sing if thee can. Don't fret, my son, thou'fet no cause. Twas that sweet voice o' thine took me back again to public worship, and it's not t' least of all I owe thee, Jack March. A poor reason lad, for taking up with a neglected duty—a poor reason—but the ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing

... here ever since, and I can truly say, my darling, that you have not once been out of my thoughts, nor have I till this day been free from anxiety about you. My worst fear has been about your own endurance of this restraint; for, knowing your impatient disposition, I have feared that you might fret yourself into illness if you were not soon released from your ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... some pain in either of the two courses which were open to him,—but, I thought, more in one than the other. If he remained in his lodgings, he would break his heart about being a burden (as he would say) to his friends; and he would fret after work so as to give himself no chance of such recovery as might be hoped for: whereas, if he could once cheerfully agree to enter a hospital, he would have every chance of rallying, and all the sooner for being ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... The lyrical artist drummed with his fingers on the mahogany arm of the sofa. "My goodness, child—what a long column there was of words rhyming with 'ette.'" He laughed to himself as he mused: "You know, my dear, I had to let 'brevet' and 'fret' and 'roulette' go, because I couldn't think of anything to say about them. You don't know how that worries a poet." He looked at the verses in the book before him and then shook his head sadly: "I was young then—it seems strange to think I could ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... "Don't fret yourself about that," said Mr. Enderby, buttoning up his coat. "We are not going to let you be lost. You just stay patiently with Mrs. Benson till ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland

... yet not at the speaker. My eyes before they could meet hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet beheld. And what—what—have I seen equal to her since? Strange, that I should love to talk of her. Strange, that I fret at myself now because I cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which—. But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold self-consciousness, what ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... speculation on the democratic tendencies of the age, as clearly contradicted by all the evidences of the flat and furrow, while Forest King drank a dozen go-downs of water, and was rewarded for the patience with which he had subdued his inclination to kick, fret, spring, and break away throughout the dressing by a full feed thrown into his crib, which Rake watched him, with adoring gaze, eat to the very ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... wages is miserable, because he himself and his needs loom up before him so large that every thing else is shut out. It is because you take a hard task and do it well, that so much praise is given to nurses. If you undertake a difficult task and fret over it all the time you are doing it, if you propose to benefit your fellow creatures and grumble because you have not comforts, or appreciation, or gratitude, where does the nobility go? Where is the heroism? If the task is easy, agreeable, delightful, the idea of heroism, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... Francis Drake, command any ship whatsoever, hold any office, be other than I am,—a man so broken, so holpen by Almighty God, that he needs not earthly praise or blame.... I have a servant ill within the camp who will fret at my absence. Wilt let me begone, John?—but you must first explain to the sergeant this my transformation. Sir Francis Drake, so long as you tarry in Cartagena I submit myself to what restriction, what surveillance, upon which you and my ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... otherwise than hold fast to his ideals and struggle upward with a courage born of inspiration. Living among such goodly people, he finds his world resplendent with the virtues that prove a halo to life. With such people about him he can be neither lonely nor despondent. If the cares of life fret him for the moment, he takes counsel with them and his equilibrium is restored. In their company he finds life a joyous experience, for their very presence exhales the qualities ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... 'Be brave,' for you 're the bravest girl in the world; but please, please don't fret and worry. Here 's ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... asked Pearson; "have the other lads been plaguing? Such a big, hearty fellow as you ought not to fret for that." ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... fret; the thief will be caught and the money restored. It will be well, perhaps to ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... do well to lighten the ship, but not by throwing overboard the ordnance; for you can but drop them close to the ship's side, and where the water is shallow they will lie up against the side of the ship and fret it, and with the working of the sea make her to ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... when he died; and you used to sit on Wash's knee when you was a little tad. Not that he's so mighty much older than you, but he was a man's size at fifteen. You don't understand, girl, but I've got to go with him sometimes. But don't you fret; Wash Gibbs ain't goin' to hurt me, and he won't come here more'n I can help, either." Then he changed the subject abruptly. "Tell me what you've been doin' ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... but the weather entirely forbade work for to-day, so some went to bed and most lay down, making up our leeway as we nautically term our loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is a fine fellow and keeps his patience and temper wonderfully; and yet how he does fret and fume about trifles at home! This wind has blown now for 36 hours, and yet we have telegrams from Bona to say the sea there is as calm as a mirror. It makes one laugh to remember one is still tied to the shore. Click, click, click, the pecker is at work: I wonder what Herr ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... dalliance in them for her. She was to know only such people as had the password, only those trimmed and trained till there was no individuality left in them. From birth she had been a rebel, but an impotent one. Each revolt had ended in submission to the silken chains of her environment. Fret as she might, none the less she was as much a caged creature as ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... yearned, and looked up at the big arching sky, and down at the flat blue sea, and felt that there was something wanting, but could never lay my tongue to what that something was. And I became quick of temper too, for my nerves seemed all of a fret, and when my mother would ask me what ailed me, or my father would speak of my turning my hand to work, I would break into such sharp bitter answers as I have often grieved over since. Ah! a man may have more than one wife, and more than one child, and more than one friend; ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... It is a terrible thing to remain chained and helpless at such a time, to realize that cruel wrong, possibly torture, is being visited upon another, upon one you know and love, and yet be unable to uplift hand or voice in warning. I am by nature cool in action, yet there are few who fret more grievously when held in leash, compelled to await in uncertainty ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... Horace Walpole and his "Gothic" ruin on Strawberry Hill; and we are of the twentieth century, and have discovered the beauty of docks and harbours and tall factory chimneys and railway stations, under the guidance of Whistler and Brangwyn and such folk, and we do not fret at laying a railway through Perthshire or the Lake District, because railways are fast becoming almost as romantic and old-fashioned to us as stage-coaches (in these days of aeroplanes and automobiles); ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... to me in every line, "I talk about God's goodness and loving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret about our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband has an unregenerate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for even in my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved by ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... accounts, although the lineage that I gave of him is true enough, doubtless he was burnt long ago, and still goes on burning—in Purgatory, I mean—though God knows I would never bring a faggot to his fire. But Master Castell will not be burnt, so why fret about it." ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... Wilderspin, who used to come in in his nervous, friendly way and try to comfort the sufferer by being talked to. "I thought this idle capacity was distinctive of little children and old maids. But it's just circumstances. I simply can't work, and things have to drift; it's no good to fret and struggle. And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby with a rattle, at this river and ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... knew all about you beforehand, although you happen to be the newest girl. Dad wrote me a whole page—wonderful for him!—and said he'd stayed at your house in London, and I was to tack myself on to you and show you round, and see you didn't fret and all the rest of it. Are you wanting a crony, temporary or otherwise? Then here I am at your service. Link an arm and we'll parade the place. I guess by the time we've finished there's not much you won't know about ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... poured his exquisite sense of color, inspired without doubt by the glass of mediaeval church windows. He travelled so very little, that I do not know whether he ever saw the treasures of radiant jewel-work which fret the gloom of Chartres or of Bourges; but if he never saw them, he divined them, and these are the only pieces of color which in the least degree suggest the drawings of this, Rossetti's second period. As far as one can gather, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... "odd kind of humorist," "always on the fret," dyspeptic, and afflicted with gout, but benevolent, generous, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... him curiously. "We aren't that much out of the woods," he remarked; "the other gang'll get in their work, don't you fret." ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... "Don't fret about that, Tod," said Budge. "Don't you know papa says that the Bible says something that means 'don't ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... the best verse hasn't been rhymed yet, The best house hasn't been planned, The highest peak hasn't been climbed yet, The mightiest rivers aren't spanned, Don't worry and fret, faint hearted, The chances have just begun, For the Best jobs haven't been started, The ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... under the spanning arches of many a bridge, seemed to grow weary of its staid behaviour and suddenly to return to the playful manners of its youth. In its wild exuberance it was scarcely recognisable as the placid river which, further in its course, flowed through Llaniago and Castell On. With fret and fume and babbling murmurs it made its way through its rocky channel, filling the air with the sound of its turmoil. Both sides of its precipitous banks down to the water's edge were hidden in woods of stunted oak, through whose branches the sound of its flow ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... believe any man but Mr. Holbrook would ever have thought of it: they worried at a great rate about that stone, how they would get it rolled away, and when they got there it was gone. I'll remember that. I'll do just as he said: when I see a stone ahead of me, I won't stop and fret about it; I'll walk straight up to it, and when I get there maybe it will roll out of ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)

... don't know that I've anything to fret about"—vaguely. "Only I shall be glad when 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband' is actually produced. Just now"—with a rather wistful smile—"I don't seem to have a husband to call my own. Miss de Gervais claims so much of ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... the boy, hotly. "It makes me think of what I read with him one day about that Roman emperor—what was his name?—playing while Rome was burning. But don't you fret, mother; London won't be burnt ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... the Fops of empty Heads and Pockets may know where to be sure of a Cully; and may they rook ye till ye lose, and fret, and chafe, and rail those youthful Eyes to sinking; watch your fair Face to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... a gift you have not got, And seem not like to get: For all your clothes and wedding-ring I've little doubt you fret. My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride, Cling closer, closer yet: Your father would give lands for one To ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... then as the insistence of his great figure towering over me had begun to fret my nerves—"Sit down, man," said I, with an impatient gesture, "and put that sickening toy away and come to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... pig I'm preparing to bite." This proved to be true, and his bite was severe: "Oh, oh!" cried the pig, "I must not remain here;" So over the stile he thought proper to get, And Goody no more had occasion to fret; For the pig to his sty was now easily led, And she put him a trough, and clean straw for a bed: Then fastened the door and wish'd him good night. The pig gave a grunt, as he ...
— The Remarkable Adventures of an Old Woman and Her Pig - An Ancient Tale in a Modern Dress • Anonymous

... skirt of her riding habit showed that she had been following the hounds through the thickets of furze that abound in the Landes, yet she did not look in the least fatigued, and as she came forward made her spirited horse fret and prance under quick, light strokes of her riding-whip—in whose handle shone a magnificent amethyst set in massive gold, and engraved with the de Foix arms. Three or four young noblemen, splendidly dressed and mounted, were with her, and as she swept proudly past our hero and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... weel fret, mum,' said Mr. Backhouse, interrupting the flood of her reproaches, with the comparative sang-froid of one who knew that, after all, he was the only carrier on the road, and that the vicarage was five miles from ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... call it) purged of all grosser properties than colour and lucency. At times thrilled by no perceptible wind, rather by the pulse of the sun's rays, the froth shook and parted: and then behold, deep in the crevasses, vignetted and shining, an acre or two of the earth of man's business and fret—tilled slopes of the Lothians, ships dotted on the Forth, the capital like a hive that some child had smoked—the ear of fancy could almost hear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... who performed the part of cook, to his own honor and the entire satisfaction of his master; while a smart but mischievous imp of a boy ran of errands, tended the fires, swept the rooms, and kept old Dominique in a continual fret, by his tricks ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... their leader. A month after Brown's foray a band of armed horsemen summoned twelve of their men to leave the State. Governor Magoffin said he could not protect them, and with their families they went into exile—stout-heartedly chanting at their departure the 37th Psalm: "Fret not ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... think I envy you; on the contrary, I am as grateful, even more grateful than if such good fortune had fallen to my own lot; but I cannot help fretting at the thought of being left here without you: and I shall fret until I am ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... then was wet, So Lu-cy took off shoes and socks; She knew that nurse would fume and fret If they got spoilt ...
— The Infant's Delight: Poetry • Anonymous

... two or three times a year. Among other advantages, Boston always soothes our nerves. It has a quieting effect upon us. The people there are better satisfied than any people we know of. Judging from a few restless spirits who get on some of the erratic platforms of that city, and who fret and fume about things in general, the world has concluded that Boston is at unrest. But you may notice that the most of the restless people who go there are imported speakers, whom Boston hires to come once a year and do for ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... go to bed now. I'll bet you my share of the ivory they're poring over the map with a magnifying-glass! D'you remember the various places we underscored? They'll think it's a cryptogram and fret ever it all night! Come ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... slept, despite the noise about him. Dressed in clean clothes, brought by the lady of the morning, and shaved by the skilful hand of Big Abel, he buried himself in the fresh straw and dreamed of Chericoke and Betty. The coil of battle swept far from him; he heard none of the fret and rumour that filled the little street; even the moans of the men beneath the surgeons' knives did not penetrate to where he lay sunk in the stupor of perfect contentment. It was not until the morning of the third day, when the winds that blew over ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... fret between its banks until the spangled frills of the mimulus were all tattered with its spray. Often at the end of the summer it was worn quite thin and small with running, and not able to do more ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... "Don't fret. What do we care?" was Van's easy answer. "We're not really after the view. I don't give a hurrah for what we see when we get to the top; what I want is the ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... I want. I would give a thousand guineas out of my own pocket to see Godolphin's face when he reads my dispatch, and finds that he's got to honor bills for a hundred thousand pounds; it will be better than any comedy that ever was acted. How the pompous old owl will fret and fume! But he will have to find the money for all that. He can't begin the campaign by dishonoring bills of her majesty's general, or no one would trust us hereafter. You haven't seen my lord ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... columns; the example apparently taken from the portico of the octagon tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, or tower of the winds, from the summit of which rises a conical dome, surmounted by the Vane. The more minute detail may be seen by the annexed drawing. The prevailing ornament is the Grecian fret. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... the bottle eagerly and cries when it is taken away. He often forms the habit of sucking his fingers immediately after. He begins to fret half an hour or an hour before ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... got a lot to say about it—and I'll see to the little details; don't fret. By the way," mentioned Baker, "just as a matter of ordinary curiosity, did Oldham have anything on you, or was he just a strong-arm artist?" He threw back his head and laughed aloud at Bob's face. At the thought of Pollock the young man could not prevent a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... shocks and mutations of time—it was an emblem of time itself: slow, regular, perpetual; unwitting of the passions that fret themselves around—of the wear and tear of mortality. The poor tortoise! nothing less than the bursting of volcanoes, the convulsions of the riven world, could have quenched its sluggish spark! The ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... spirit of the beer is retained, and it is thereby enabled to work the liquor clear; whereas in hot weather, the spirit quickly evaporates, leaving the wort vapid and flat, unable to work itself clear, but keeping continually on the fret, till totally spoiled. This is the obvious reason for the use of sugar, prepared for colour, because sugar will bear the heat better than malt; and when thoroughly prepared, possesses such a strong principle ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... tasks in his usual fashion, not brilliantly or quickly, but pretty accurately. Elsie was in trouble more than once during the afternoon for inattention, and earned several bad marks, over which she did not fret. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... hundred rupees, and the distance was "round the course for all horses." Shackles' owner said:—"You can arrange the race with regard to Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him under weight-cloths, I don't mind. Regula Baddun's owner said:—"I throw in my mare to fret Ousel. Six furlongs is Regula's distance, and she will then lie down and die. So also will Ousel, for his jockey doesn't understand a waiting race." Now, this was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two months at Dehra, and her chances were good, always supposing ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... having observed the complacence with which the count always regarded Miss Beaufort determined the goad should fret; and drawing the knitting out of his pocket which he had snatched the night before from Mary, he exclaimed, "'Fore heaven, here ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... the poor mother said, clinging pathetically to that which gave her consolation and cheer. "I say to myself that it must have been some brain disease took her all of a sudden and made her crazy that-a-way; because God knows she had nothing to fret her nor drive ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... Mounsier get your weapons in your hand, & kill me a red hipt humble-Bee, on the top of a thistle; and good Mounsieur bring mee the hony bag. Doe not fret your selfe too much in the action, Mounsieur; and good mounsieur haue a care the hony bag breake not, I would be loth to haue you ouerflowne with a hony-bag signiour. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... site of a set of new offices; and the third lamented that her Ladyship had not on thicker shoes, that she might have gone and seen the garden. More than ever disgusted and wretched, the hapless Lady Juliana returned to the house to fret away the time till ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... tride, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To lose good days that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent. To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow. To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eat thy heart through ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... was assailed by the irresolutions of the previous day. When Mother Michel, before going out, said to him, "I leave Moumouth in your charge; you must take care of him, and make him play, so that he will not fret too much during my absence," the poor lad felt his heart fail, and his natural ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire

... gloom for the space of ten minutes, when with a sudden turn of the wheel a mental picture was presented of a ship ploughing across the seas, bearing a lonely emigrant to his difficult task, when it became, all of a sudden, contemptible beyond words to fret oneself about—a ribbon! As she herself had said, having once come face to face with tragedy, her eyes were opened to the petty nature of her own trials. She ironed and pressed, and viewing the shabby bows and insufficient ends, said ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... of this remarkable work is of the richest style of Gothic, and the whole of it is in bronze, except that the oaken sarcophagus is encased in silver plates. This rests beneath a fret-work canopy supported on slender pillars. There is an abundance of ornament everywhere, but the close examination of its detail shows beauty and fitness in every part. For example, if we compare the statue of the saint, of which we have spoken, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... so kindly and so nice; But rather fewer clients would suffice. Their helping hands begin to gall and fret me; I'll get a moment's respite, if they'll let me. [Going out ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... seems to me one of the few genuine writers, as distinguished from book-makers, of this age. His earnestness even amuses me in certain passages; for I cannot help laughing to think how utilitarians will fume and fret over his deep, serious (and as THEY will think), fanatical reverence for Art. That pure and severe mind you ascribed to him speaks in every line. He writes like a consecrated Priest of the Abstract ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... first appeared in the Fifth Edition. In returning the proof to Murray, Byron writes, August 26, 1813, "The last lines Hodgson likes—it is not often he does—and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... cherub, on pinions of silver descending, Had brought me a gem from the fret-work of heaven; And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending, The blessings of Tighe had ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats

... Meeker?" was the reply. "Oh, you mean the hoss? Why she's gone up the flume. Broke her neck the first heat. But ole Sim Salper is never a-goin' to fret hisself to a shadder about it. He struck it pizen in the mine she was named a'ter and the stock's gone up from nothin' out o' sight. You couldn't tech that stock ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, 5 Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have dominion, Body, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... step beside me, and we slowly paced the alley side by side, and, as we went, withered leaves overhead, and withered leaves to make a carpet for our fret, she told me in her own way more or less what I have set down, even to her brother's self-seeking share in the transaction that she dubbed hideous ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... the race mind, the process being now under way. Are not the signs of mental unrest and discomfort becoming more and more apparent as the days go by? The pain is growing greater, and the race is beginning to fret and chafe, and moan. It knows not what it wants, but it knows that it feels pain and wants something to relieve that pain. The old things are beginning to totter and fall, and ideas rendered sacred ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... alike the thunder and the sunshine with frolic welcome. Only now and then, when all things do not fall exactly as I wish them, when foolish, wicked people will persist in doing foolish, wicked acts, affecting my comfort and happiness, I rage and fret ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... prime of earliest youth Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, And with those few art eminently seen That labour up the hill of heavenly truth, The better part, with Mary and with Ruth, Chosen thou hast; and they that overween, And at thy glowing virtues fret their spleen, No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth. Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends Passes to bliss at the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... "Neither fret nor fear, dear," said Florence, addressing Janet; "I hae a hand to defend my head, an' a guid sword to guard baith." Then turning to her mother, he added—"An' what may be yer plan, that I may communicate it to them that I ken to be ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... gladness for his sake, when (in those bits of our different holidays which overlapped each other) I saw and felt the contrast between our opportunities; for having suffered my harder lot in silence that my mother might not fret, when I felt certain that my father would not interfere! My heart beat as if it would have pumped the tears into my eyes by main force, but I kept them back, and said steadily enough, ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... good to fret about it, you know, Miss Dorry. Come, now, you'll have the awfulest headache that ever was, if you don't brighten up. When you're in trouble, count your blessings—that's what I always say; and you've a big share of 'em after all, dear. Let me make you ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... on any of the stuffed chairs or little folding tables she had brought up from the South, and the heavy gold moulding was half broken away from the oil portrait of her father, the judge. But she carried her poverty lightly, as Southern people did after the Civil War, and she didn't fret half so much about her back taxes as her neighbours did. Claude tried to talk agreeably to her, but he was distracted by the sound of stifled laughter upstairs. Probably Gladys and Enid were joking about Bayliss' being there. How ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... whole a very good time. Looked after by RUSTEM ROOSE, whose cure is as alluring as it is infallible. "Eat, drink and sleep," he says. "Lie on your back and sedulously do nothing." So whilst they storm and fret at Westminster, here, in hollow Lotos Land we live and lie reclining. Pleasant to hear RUSTEM ROOSE's voice as he goes his morning rounds, stethoscope in hand. "A long breath, dear friend: say ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... have no patience. I fret and tease myself, and fancy all sorts of things, instead of trusting as she did. I don't know how ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... we had no very great difficulty in getting away. I have been very well treated, and until I heard that you were again taking the offensive, I had no reason to fret ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... recovering. With rare restraint young Dr. Charlton did not fuss and fret and meddle, did not hamper nature with his blundering efforts to assist, did not stuff "nourishment" into his patient to decay and to produce poisonous blood. He let the young man's superb vitality work the inevitable and speedy cure. Thus, wounds and shocks, that have ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... befallen me, and threw myself on the couch. She saw that my colour was changed and said to me, 'What ails thee and why do I see thee thus changed?' 'My head irks me,' answered I; 'I am not well.' When she heard this, she was vexed and concerned for me and said to me, 'Fret not my heart, O my lord! Sit up and raise thy head and let me know what has happened to thee to-day, for thy face tells me a tale.' 'Spare me this talk,' replied I. But she wept and said, 'Meseems thou art tired of ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the flooded waters, and the stealing sure inroad of the mosses that everywhere grew from the dews and the fogs, had taken and eaten, in hunger or sport, or had touched, and thieved from, then left, gangrened ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... though I spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... would resent with heat the regulations regarded as a matter of course in France. He would fume and fret and all but rebel, if asked to live as the French people are forced to ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... bear it very patiently; and it was worth my observing, to see how upon these two scores, Sir G. Carteret, the most passionate man in the world, and that was in greatest haste to be gone, did bear with it, and very pleasant all the while, at least not troubled much so as to fret and storm at it. Anon the coach comes: in the mean time there coming a news thither with his horse to go over, that told us he did come from Islington this morning; and that Proctor the vintner of the Miter in Wood-street, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... those who fled consulted the gods on the plain, and Gat answer Fret[Sec.] from that the day was propitious to battle; There the war-leader saw how mighty were the corse-ribs; The gods of the temple would thin lives in Gautland. A Sword-Thing held the Earl there where no man afore him With shield on arm had ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... laughed a little bitterly. 'I certainly meant to do them some good, and I even thought I had succeeded. My dear aunt, people don't always like being done good to. I remember that myself when I was a small boy. I used to fret and fume at the things which were done for my good; that was because I was a child. The crowd is ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... most religious country in Europe, while in the Netherlands there was a growing liberal spirit which attracted the archduchess. It must have been annoying to her to feel that her mother, Isabella, was in a constant fret about the condition of her soul, while otherwise she was treated with a distant formality, entirely devoid of a mother's love, and it is no small wonder that she refused to accept a spiritual director and father confessor who had been sent ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... saying by what solemn promises he had been undone. But no! such a story just at that moment would have crushed Charles Haughton's last chance of ever holding up his head again, and Charles told me (for it was through Charles that I knew the tale) that Willy's parting words to him were 'Do not fret, Charles—after all, my boy is now settled in life, and I am a cat with nine lives, and should fall on my legs if thrown out of a garret window. Don't fret.' So he kept the secret, and told the money-lender to hold his tongue. Poor Willy! I never asked a rich friend to lend me money ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... companying with virile, open minds, and the strict insistence upon individual rights—yes, and the irritation of the same faces, the same figures, the same fare, the same labor, the same scant recreations, all worked as poison, to depress and fret and stimulate like alternant chills ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... and his servant was allowed to attend him at his pleasure, and to sleep in an adjoining apartment. Even this nominal confinement, however, Galileo's high spirit was unable to brook. An attack of the disease to which he was constitutionally subject contributed to fret and irritate him, and he became impatient for a release from his anxiety as well as from his bondage. Cardinal Barberino seems to have received notice of the state of Galileo's feelings, and, with a magnanimity which posterity will ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... in the center of the Court of Lions uphold a large alabaster basin in which were caught, in times gone by, the falling waters of the fountain above it. Many graceful pillars support the surrounding arcades of this court and the exquisite fret-work looks as ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... yoursel' owermuch wi' the past, laddie. And for me—I'm not that presoomtious to think I can square up a misspent life as a man might compound wi's creditors. 'Gin HE forgi'es me, He'll forgi'e; but it's not a prayer up or a chapter doun that'll stan' between me and the Almighty. So dinna fret yoursel', but let ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, 'I should never have known what a man can ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... They dare not sit or lean, But fume and fret and posture And foam and curse between; For being bound to Baal, Whose sacrifice is vain, Their rest is scant with Baal, They glare and pant for Baal, They mouth and rant for Baal, ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... said Lincoln, at last, "we will not wrangle on whose was the slip, or if it does not trouble you it will not trouble me. Anyway, what is a basin of pap?—nothing to fret about!" ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself, subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it over," he ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... a stone around my neck," said the man bitterly. "I have to hide you, and all the time I'm in a fret as to whether you will give me away or not. I am going to keep you under my eye now," he said. "You know a little too ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... little lad, Feel very blue In weather sad? You mope and fret and whine and frown, To see ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... temptation. He proceeded to drink therefore, when, becoming intoxicated, he lay down to sleep. Then Benaiah, came forth from his ambush, and stealthily approaching, fastened the chain round the sleeper's neck. Ashmedai, when he awoke, began to fret and fume, and would have torn off the chain that bound him, had not Benaiah warned him, saying, "The name of thy Lord is upon thee." Having thus secured him, Benaiah proceeded to lead him away to his sovereign master. As they journeyed along they came to a palm-tree, against which ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... truth, whether they pay or receive honour, which is but transitory and profitless. To the true Christian the world assumes another and more interesting appearance; it is no longer a stage for the great and noble, for the ambitious to fret in, and the wealthy to revel in; but it is a scene of probation. Every soul is a candidate for immortality. And the more we realize this view of things, the more will the accidental distinctions of nature or fortune ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... sure I cannot tell what it is. In old times, Rosie would have burst forth with it all, as soon as we came up-stairs. But it is nothing that can trouble her, I am sure. I hope it is nothing that will trouble her. I will not fret about it beforehand. We do not know our troubles from our blessings at first sight. It ought not to be less easy to trust for my darling than for myself. But, oh! Rosie, I am afraid I have been at my old folly, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... her father, "If you'd more to do you'd have less lime to fret about it. Your mother did more work in one summer than you have in all your life, an' she's ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... far back as 1851, Bayard Taylor remarked that 'her frame seemed to be altogether disproportionate to her soul.' Her 'fiery soul' did, indeed, with a far more literal truth than can often be the case, fret her 'puny body to decay, and o'er-informed its tenement of clay.' Her last illness—or, it may more truly be said, the last phase of that illness which had been present with her for years—was neither long nor severe; but she had no more strength left to resist ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... He could bear poverty, neglect, hardships, even death itself; but imprisonment, with a disgraceful execution as the only end of it, that he was not at first prepared to endure. He had tasted captivity in the Tower once before; he knew the intolerable tedium and fret of it; and the very prospect maddened him. Nor would his thoughts be only or mainly of himself. He would reflect that if he were once condemned, nothing but financial ruin and social obloquy would attend his wife and children; ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... libertine calls "a woman,"—such as a frivolous education makes a woman,—generous in great things, petty in small; vain, irritable, full of the littleness of herself and her complaints, ready to plunge into an abyss with her lover, but equally ready to fret away all love with reproaches when the plunge had been made. Of all men, Welford could bear this the least. A woman of a larger heart, a more settled experience, and an intellect capable of appreciating his character and sounding all his qualities, might have made him ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... angry, and sin not, neither let the sun go down upon our wrath." We shall make of our fellow-men neither idols to worship, nor demons to be regarded with horror and execration. We shall think of them, as of players, "that strut and fret their hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more." We shall "weep, as though we wept not, and rejoice, as though we rejoiced not, seeing that the fashion of this world passeth away." And, most of all, we shall view with pity, even with sympathy, the men whose frailties we behold, or by ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... but for Docther Wintworth), Jovarny kim up, an' axed might the child go for a walk to the Gardens wid him; an' I jist puttin' on me shawl to go out, an' not wantin' to take the little crather in wid a sick woman, nor yet to lock the door on her, an' lave her to fret. So I says she might go wid him; and, whin she coom home, I tould Jovarny to open the door wid the kay an' let her in, an' showed her the dinner on the shelf by: an' if it's harm that's coom to her, it's harder on me than on yersilf ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... fret about," she said. "It isn't your loss; it's hers, if she's that sort of girl. Let her please herself, I say; and if she's ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... Bodb Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to, for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However," he said, "our friendship ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... into a fret at once. Netty was not the Netty of an hour ago, or she would have coaxed him out of it. But she did not notice it now in her abstraction. She had risen at the tinkle of the bell, and seated herself in a chair. Presently ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor

... the varied voices of Nature, each eager to give tongue to its joy; eating healthful, simple food with appetite and relish; absorbing the assurance that Nature means good and nothing but good to man, thus coming nearer to the heart of God; losing the fret and worry of money-getting and all other of Life's lower ambitions and strivings; feeling the inflow of strength,—physical, mental and spiritual; gaining calmness, serenity, poise and power;—is there any wonder that a man so blessed ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... L250—well sold, I think—and is to go forth immediately. The man is a puffing quack; but though I would rather the thing had not gone there, and far rather that it had gone nowhere, yet, hang it! if it makes the poor lad easy, what needs I fret about it? After all, there would be little gain in doing a kind thing, if you did not suffer pain or inconvenience upon ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between us for some time, that I had become reconciled to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... Neither ask, nor fret, nor strive: Where thy path is, thou shall go. He who made the streams of time Wafts thee down ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... hour in reflecting upon the most convenient method of putting an end to my life. Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation. My house was literally besieged from morning till night, so that I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I internally vowed the bitterest ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... flocks of clouds. It never undertakes to lead anybody anywhere to any solid conclusion; yet it reveals endless spheres of light, because it has no walls round itself. It acknowledges the facts of evil; it openly admits "the weariness, the fever and the fret" in the world "where men sit and hear each other groan"; yet it remembers that in spite of all there is the song of the nightingale, and "haply the Queen Moon is on her throne," ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... "Don't fret about such trifles," they said. "We will find you some place less cold and dismal than Mademoiselle Gamard's gloomy house. If we can't find anything you like, one or other of us will take you to live with us. Come, let's play a game of backgammon. To-morrow you can go and see the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Fret" :   speckle, touch, dither, grace, fleck, adorn, handicraft, ornament, gravel, contract, render, maculation, get at, rag, nettle, beautify, rub, bother, damage, grate, spot, get to, gag, provide, vex, sweat, chafe, agitation, gall, wash, patch, erode, honeycomb, flap, meet, rankle, furnish, rust, stew, lather, bar, dapple



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