Fret

How to spell fret

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fret

What does fret mean?

1. verbTo feel persistent worry or anxiety about something.
2. nounA raised ridge across the neck of a guitar or similar instrument that marks where to press the string.

Fret in a sentence

• verb

  There is no need to fret about the deadline; the report is already finished.

• noun

  His finger slipped behind the wrong fret and the note came out flat.

• verb

  Parents often fret over their children long after they leave home.

• noun

  The luthier filed each metal fret until the strings rang cleanly.

Where does fret come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English fretan, which meant 'to devour' or 'to eat up', formed from an intensifying prefix plus etan, the ordinary verb 'to eat'. It belongs to a wider Germanic family and shares an ancestor with the Dutch vreten and the German fressen, both still used for animals greedily eating. The modern emotional sense grew naturally out of this idea of gnawing or eating away: a worry that 'frets' at you is one that nibbles steadily at your peace of mind, just as rust or water frets at a surface by wearing it down. The musical sense, the small ridge on the neck of a guitar, and the ornamental sense (as in fretwork) may have separate, less certain roots, but the dominant 'gnaw and worry' meaning is firmly Germanic. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, the spelling itself is straightforward; the interest lies in the surprisingly violent original meaning behind today's gentle word for anxiety.

How the word is built

• fret (from Old English fretan: to devour, eat away)