fret

verb17

1. •
   To chafe or irritate; to worry.
2. •
   To be chafed or irritated; to be angry or vexed; to utter peevish expressions through irritation or worry.

   • Fret not thy selfe because of euill doers, neither bee thou enuious against the workers of iniquitie. — 1611
3. •
   To be anxious, to worry.

   • Critics were vehemently outspoken; but while they fretted about looks, they missed the cleverer points in the design itself. — 1954
4. •
   To be agitated; to rankle; to be in violent commotion.

   • Rancour frets in the malignant breast.
5. •
   To press down the string behind a fret.

   • Note that right next to the headstock, the boxes may utilize some open notes in place of fretting with the pointer finger because the nut will effectively fret the notes for you[…]. — 2015
6. •
   # To fit frets on to (a musical instrument).
7. •
   To gnaw; to consume, to eat away.

   • VVhen thrid of life is almost fret in twaine, To giue it strength breeds thankes, and wonders too. — 1593
8. •
   To mine by agitating or eating away at (ore in the bank of a river).
9. •
   To be worn away; to chafe; to fray.

   • A wristband frets on the edges.
10. •
    To decorate or ornament, especially with an interlaced or interwoven pattern, or (architecture) with carving or relief (raised) work.

    • In a long purple pall, whose skirt with gold, / Was fretted all about, she was arayd, [...] — 1590
11. •
    To form a pattern on; to variegate.

    • Decius. Here lyes the East: doth not the Day breake heere? [...] Cin[na]. O pardon, Sir, it doth; and yon grey Lines, / That fret the Clouds, are Messengers of Day. — 1599
12. •
    To cut through with a fretsaw, to create fretwork.
13. •
    To make rough, to agitate or disturb; to cause to ripple.

    • Don't fret the surface of the lake.
14. •
    To bind, to tie, originally with a loop or ring.
15. •
    To have secondary fermentation (fermentation occurring after the conversion of sugar to alcohol in beers and wine) take place.
16. •
    In the form fret out: to squander, to waste.
17. •
    (literary, no longer used) Especially when describing animals: to consume, devour, or eat.

    • Their hearts alreadie fretted and cankered at the very roote, for the last disgrace received. — 1609

noun11

1. •
   One of the pieces of metal, plastic or wood across the neck of a guitar or other string instrument that marks where a finger should be positioned to depress a string as it is played.

   • The long-necked Egyptian Nefer was certainly depicted in the 4th dynasty; and wall-painting of the time of Moses, preserved in the British Museum, shows that it then had frets. — 1880
2. •
   Agitation of the mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation.

   • He keeps his mind in a continual fret.
3. •
   A fog or mist at sea, or coming inland from the sea.

   • The wind brings a fret off the ocean; not cold, but achingly damp. — 2008
4. •
   An ornamental pattern consisting of repeated vertical and horizontal lines, often in relief.

   • Remove spills from grill frets with a cloth and brush the frets with a stiff brush when dry and cold. — 1943
5. •
   A channel, a strait; a fretum.
6. •
   (rare) A channel or passage created by the sea.
7. •
   Agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or some other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.
8. •
   Herpes; tetter (“any of various pustular skin conditions”).
9. •
   [in the plural] The worn sides of riverbanks, where ores or stones containing them accumulate after being washed down from higher ground, which thus indicate to miners the locality of veins of ore.
10. •
    A saltire interlaced with a mascle.
11. •
    (dialect, no longer used) A ferrule, a ring.

noun2

1. •
   Förster resonance energy transfer
2. •
   fluorescence resonance energy transfer, which is a type of the Förster phenomenon where one or both of the partners in the energy transfer are fluorescent chromophores

   • FRET interactions among four dyes on DNA have been recorded with a confocal microscope using photodiodes for single point detection. — 2010