I saugh how that his houndes han him [Actæon] caught,
And freten him, for that they knewe him naught.
Id., Knightes Tale (Morris, ii. p. 64).
Thou makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth fretting a garment.—Ps. xxxix. 12. P. B. V.
Frightful. Now always active, that which inspires fright; but formerly as often passive, that which is, or is liable to be, frightened. See ‘Dreadful,’ ‘Hateful.’
The wild and frightful herds,
Not hearing other noise, but this of chattering birds,
Feed fairly on the lawns.
Drayton, Polyolbion, Song 13.
Frippery. Now such trumpery, such odds and ends of cheap finery, as one might expect to meet at an old-clothes shop; but in our early dramatists and others of their time, the shop itself where old clothes were by the ‘fripper’ or broker scoured, ‘interpolated,’ and presented anew for sale (officina vestium tritarum, Skinner); nor had ‘frippery’ then the contemptuous subaudition of worthlessness in the objects offered for sale which its present use would imply. See Littré, Dictionnaire, s. v. Friperie.