Fret vs Distress - What's the difference?
fret | distress |
To devour, consume; eat.
* (rfdate)— Piers Ploughman.
* Wiseman
(transitive, and, intransitive) To gnaw, consume, eat away.
To be worn away; to chafe; to fray.
To cut through with fretsaw, create fretwork.
To chafe or irritate; to worry.
To worry or be anxious.
* , chapter=5
, title= To be vexed; to be chafed or irritated; to be angry; to utter peevish expressions.
*
*:Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
* Dryden
To make rough, agitate, or disturb; to cause to ripple.
To be agitated; to be in violent commotion; to rankle.
(music) To press down the string behind a fret.
To ornament with raised work; to variegate; to diversify.
* Spenser
* Shakespeare
The agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.
Agitation of mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation.
* Pope
Herpes; tetter.
(mining, in the plural) 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.
(music) One of the pieces of metal/wood/plastic across the neck of a guitar or other musical instrument that marks note positions for fingering.
An ornamental pattern consisting of repeated vertical and horizontal lines (often in relief).
* Evelyn
(heraldiccharge) A saltire interlaced with a mascle.
(Cause of) discomfort.
* {{quote-book
, year=1833
, author=John Trusler
, title=The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings
, chapter=8
Serious danger.
* {{quote-book
, year=1719
, author=Daniel Defoe
, title=Robinson Crusoe
, chapter=13
* {{quote-book
, year=1759
, author=Voltaire
, title=Candide
, chapter=42
(legal) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
(legal) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
* Spenser
* Blackstone
To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
* {{quote-book
, year=1827
, author=Stendhal
, title=Armance
, chapter=31
(legal) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
*
To treat an object, such as an antique, to give it an appearance of age.
As an adjective fret
is cold.As a noun distress is
(cause of) discomfort.As a verb distress is
to cause strain or anxiety to someone.fret
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) .Verb
- Adam freet of that fruit, And forsook the love of our Lord.
- Many wheals arose, and fretted one into another with great excoriation.
- A wristband frets on the edges.
Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.}}
- He frets , he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground.
- to fret the surface of water
- Rancour frets in the malignant breast.
- whose skirt with gold was fretted all about
- Yon grey lines, / That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.
Noun
(en noun)- (Addison)
- He keeps his mind in a continual fret .
- Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret .
- (Dunglison)
Etymology 2
From (etyl) < (etyl), from the verb (m).Noun
(en noun)- His lady's cabinet is adorned on the fret , ceiling, and chimney-piece with carving.
Derived terms
* fretboardEtymology 3
From (etyl)Etymology 4
Anagrams
* ----distress
English
Noun
(-)citation, passage=To heighten his distress , he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be able to surmount.}}
citation, passage=I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress , and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help.}}
citation, passage=At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress .}}
- If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.
- The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.
Verb
(es)citation, passage=She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.}}
- She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.
