▪ I. † frit, n.1
[a. Fr. frit, pa. pple. of frire to fry.]
? Toast.
| 14.. Anc. Cookery in Househ. Ord. (1790) 449 Daryolus, and leche-fryes, made of frit and friture. |
▪ II. frit, n.2
(frɪt)
Also 7–9 fritt.
[ad. (directly or through F. fritte) It. fritta, fem. pa. pple. of friggĕre to fry.]
1. Glass-making. A calcined mixture of sand and fluxes ready to be melted in a crucible to form glass.
| 1662 Merret tr. Neri's Art of Glass 17 Fritt is nothing else but a calcination of those materials which make glass. 1773 Franklin Lett. Wks. 1840 V. 461 The globe in question was of this frit. 1800 tr. Lagrange's Chem. I. 415 The product is a kind of vitreous frit, soluble in water. 1853 Ure Dict. Arts I. 908 The founding-pots are filled up with these blocks of frit. 1870 T. W. Webb in Eng. Mech. 21 Jan. 448/1 Specks of ‘frit’ (unmelted material in the substance of the glass). |
2. Ceramics. The vitreous composition from which soft porcelain is made.
| 1791 E. Darwin Bot. Gard. i. Notes 39 The frit of the potters..is liable to crack in drying. 1832 G. R. Porter Porcelain & Gl. 43 A frit compounded of nitre, soda, alum and selenite. 1875 Fortnum Majolica i. 2 A loose frit or body, to which an enamel adheres. |
3. attrib. and Comb., as frit-brick, frit-mixer, frit-powder. Also frit-porcelain (see quot.).
| 1853 Ure Dict. Arts I. 908 These frit-bricks are after⁓wards piled up in a large apartment for use. 1874 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 917 A frit-mixer is a horizontal cylinder with oblique beaters, or a box with semi-cylindrical bottom and a rotating shaft with beaters or stirring arms. 1881 Porcelain Works, Worcester 15 This fritt powder is used along with borax and other materials. 1889 Century Dict., Frit procelain, a name given to the artificial soft-paste English porcelain. |
▪ III. frit, v.
(frɪt)
[f. frit n.2]
trans. To make into frit; to fuse partially; to calcine. Hence ˈfritted ppl. a., ˈfritting vbl. n.; also attrib.
| 1805–17 R. Jameson Char. Min. (ed. 3) 295 Fritting, when single parts of the mass are melted, while others remain unaltered. 1832 G. R. Porter Porcelain & Gl. vi. 199 The sand, lime, soda, and manganese, being properly inter⁓mingled, are fritted in small furnaces. 1853 Ure Dict. Arts I. 908 When the fourth hour has expired the fritting operation is finished. 1879 Rutley Stud. Rocks xiv. 291 Porcelain jasper has a fused or fritted appearance. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Fritting, the formation of a slag by heat with but incipient fusion. 1881 Harper's Mag. Feb. 364 These..are fritted or melted in an oven till they run like molasses. |
▪ IV. frit, a.
Dial. and colloq. pa. pple. of fright v. 2 a.