Search the Dictionary

ment with raised work; to variegate; to diversify. Whose skirt with gold was fretted all about. Spenser. Yon gray lines, That fret the clouds, are messengers of day. Shak.

in a trifling or foolish manner; to act frivolously. The fools that are fribbling round about you. Thackeray.

Originally, a vessel of the Mediterranean propelled by sails and by oars. The French, about 1650, transferred the name to larger vessels, and by 1750 it had been appropriated for a class of war vessels intermediate between corvettes and ships of the line. Frigates, from about 1750 to 1850, had one full battery deck and…

ill or frills. Frilled lizard (Zoöl.), a large Australian lizard (Chlamydosaurus Kingii) about three feet long, which has a large, erectile frill on each side of the neck.

a fringe of hair or curls worn about the forehead by women.

Full of levity; dancing, playing, or frisking about; full of pranks; frolicsome; gay; merry. The frolic wind that breathes the spring. Milton. The gay, the frolic, and the loud. Waller.

The tomcod; -- so called because it is abundant on the New England coast in autumn at about the commencement of frost. See Tomcod.

An affection in hawks, in which white spittle gathers about the hawk's bill. Booth.

That by which a lever is sustained, or about which it turns in lifting or moving a body.

To feel or grope about; to make awkward attempts to do or find something. Adams now began to fumble in his pockets. Fielding.

or state; the activity appropriate to any business or profession. Tradesmen . . . going about their functions. Shak. The malady which made him incapable of performing his regal functions. Macaulay.

A tumult; a bustle; unnecessary or annoying ado about trifles. Byron. Zealously, assiduously, and with a minimum of fuss or noise Carlyle.

Making a fuss; disposed to make an unnecessary ado about trifles; overnice; fidgety. Not at all fussy about his personal appearance. R. G. White.

To walk about; to rove or go about, without purpose; hence, to run wild; to be uncontrolled. "The gadding vine." Milton. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way Jer. ii. 36.

One who roves about idly, a rambling gossip.

Going about much, needlessly or without purpose. Envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets. Bacon. The good nuns would check her gadding tongue. Tennyson. Gadding car, in quarrying, a car which carries a drilling machine so arranged as to drill a line of holes.

Gadding about. [Obs.]

To play the beau; to wait upon the ladies; also, to roam about for pleasure without any definite plan. [Slang] Dickens.

A West Indian lizard (Celestus occiduus), about a foot long, imagined by the natives to be venomous.

A skipping or leaping about in frolic; a hop; a sportive prank. Dryden.