Fray

How to spell fray

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fray

What does fray mean?

1. verbTo wear or rub at an edge until the threads or fibres loosen and come apart.
2. nounA noisy fight, quarrel, or competitive contest that people enter or are drawn into.

Fray in a sentence

• verb

  The cuffs of his old jacket began to fray after years of wear.

• noun

  The new manager jumped straight into the fray on her first day.

• verb

  Cheap rope will fray quickly if it rubs against rough stone.

• noun

  Two more candidates entered the fray for the council seat.

Where does fray come from?

Language of origin: French

This little word actually carries two distinct stories that happen to look identical. The 'wear thin and unravel' meaning comes from Old French froiier or freier, which traces back to the Latin fricare, meaning 'to rub'; the same Latin root gives us 'friction' and 'fricative', and the idea of fabric being rubbed until its threads loosen is exactly how the modern sense developed. The 'fight or noisy quarrel' meaning is a different arrival: it is a shortened, head-clipped form of 'affray', from Old French esfreer, 'to disturb or frighten', the same source that gave English 'afraid'. Both senses settled into English by the late Middle Ages, the cloth sense from the 1300s and the brawl sense a little later. Because the spelling is so short and phonetically plain, the real trap is simply remembering that it ends in a silent-looking -ay rather than -ey, unlike its near-twin sound in words such as 'grey'.

How the word is built

• fray (single root, no affixes; a worn-down survivor of Old French froiier and, in the fight sense, a clipped form of affray)