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To devour. [Obs.] The sow frete the child right in the cradle. Chaucer.

Disposed to fret; ill-humored; peevish; angry; in a state of vexation; as, a fretful temper. -- Fret"ful-ly, adv. -- Fret"ful-ness, n.

The worn side of the bank of a river. See 4th Fret, n., 4.

Ornamented with fretwork; furnished with frets; variegated; made rough on the surface.

Rubbed; marked; as, pock-fretten, marked with the smallpox. [Obs.] Wright.

One who, or that which, frets.

Adorned with fretwork.

A strait, or arm of the sea.

Work adorned with frets; ornamental openwork or work in relief, esp. when elaborate and minute in its parts. Heuce, any minute play of light andshade, dark and light, or the like. Banqueting on the turf in the fretwork of shade and sunshine. Macaulay.

A furious onset or attack. [Obs.] Spenser.

A small gutter; a furrow; a groove.

Interlaced; linked together; -- said of charges or bearings. See Fretted.

See Pockmarked.

One of two or more species of marine food fishes of the genus Stromateus (S. niger, S. argenteus) native of Southern Europe and Asia.

Refrain. [Obs.] Bailey.

The act of passing over a strait or narrow sea. [Obs.] Sir J. Davies.

To pass over a strait or narrow sea. [Written also transfreight.] [Obs.] E. Hall.

To smooth after being fretted. [Obs.]

et, a doublet of the 16th century, hanging down so as to cover the belly. Shak. -- Belly fretting, the chafing of a horse's belly with a girth. Johnson. -- Belly timber, food. [Ludicrous] Prior. -- Belly worm, a worm that breeds or lives in the belly (stomach or intestines). Johnson.

Affected mentally or morally as with canker; sore, envenomed; malignant; fretful; ill-natured. "A cankered grandam's will." Shak.