▪ I. fretter1
(ˈfrɛtə(r))
[f. fret v.1 + -er1.]
One who or that which frets.
1. † a. A devourer (obs.). b. That which gnaws, eats away, or corrodes. Obs. exc. in vine-fretter: see quot. 1608.
| 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. § 43 Terre..is a fretter, and no healer, without it be medled with some of these [oil, butter, etc.]. 1568–9 Act 11 Eliz. in Bolton Stat. Irel. (1621) 298 The fretter of our lives and substance. 1608 Topsell Serpents 666 Vine-fretters, which are a kind of Caterpillers, or little hairy wormes with many feet, that eat vines when they begin to shoot. 1610 Markham Masterp. ii. cxxx. 432 Other Farriers vse the powder of Risagallo, or Risagre, but it is a great deale too strong a fretter. 1611 Cotgr., Tavelliere, the little worme called a Wood-fretter. 1771 Misc. in Ann. Reg. 172/2 Reaumur has proved that vine fretters do not want an union of sexes for the multiplication of their kind. 1895 Dublin Rev. Oct. 444 He considered the generation of vine fretters from a new point of view. |
2. a. One who or something which irritates or chafes. b. One who gives way to fretting or ill-temper.
| a. 1503 Hawes Examp. Virt. viii. (Arb.) 38 So that fraylte to hym be no freter. a 1625 Beaum. & Fl. Bloody Bro. ii. ii, Give me some drink, this fire's a plaguy fretter. 1790 Wolcott (P. Pindar) Advice to Fut. Laureat Wks. 1812 II. 341 Thou plague of Post Office, the teaser, fretter. |
| b. 1649 Fuller Just Man's Fun. 19 The first are the fretters. a 1732 T. Boston Serm. (1850) 120 This doctrine reproves murmurers and fretters. |
▪ II. fretter2
(ˈfrɛtə(r))
[f. fret v.4 + -er1.]
A branch that rubs.
| 1615 W. Lawson Orch. & Gard. iii. xi. (1668) 38 Fretters are when..two or more parts of the tree, or of divers trees, as arms, boughs..grow so near and close together, that one of them by rubbing doth wound one another. 1664 Evelyn Sylva (1776) 472 This is of great importance and so is the sedulously taking away of Suckers, Water-boughs, Fretters, etc. 1670 J. Smith England's Improv. Reviv'd 72. |