unfret
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Verb
[edit]unfret (third-person singular simple present unfrets, present participle unfretting, simple past and past participle unfretted)
- (transitive) To smooth after being fretted.
- 1590, Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene, A Looking Glass for London and England:
- My mind misgives: to Joppa will I fly, And for a while to Tharsus shape my course, Until the Lord unfret his angry brows.
- 1956, Shenandoah - Volumes 8-9, page 65:
- For how many floodings must it assuage, For how many shufflings must it unfret Those winking, muttering banks with its aching arch.
- 1997, Diane Kelsey McColley, Poetry and Music in Seventeenth-Century England, page 99:
- Much of the alleged roughness of Donne's prosody unfrets itself without betraying his refusal of mellifluous regularity – if readers fit word lengths and rests into lines as singers do.
- 2000, Robert Devereaux, Santa Steps Out, page 33:
- So unfret that brow, put your worries behind you, let's see some jolly light those eyes.
- (by extension, transitive, intransitive) To sooth or calm; to make or become less fretful or stressed.
- 1936, Frederick Stallknecht Wight, The Chronicle of Aaron Kane, page 28:
- "She'll be all right," Madge assured him. "Now you go out a while, and unfret yourself. It's a boy you've got."
- 2003, Milton Arthur Caniff, Steve Canyon, 1948, page 11:
- Fall back and unfret yourself, Ol' Fuzzer!
- 2008, Patricia A. Kuess, Slather:
- My laugh is a light, gentle trill, perfectly tuned to unfret him immediately.
- 2009, Bholanath Das, Reflection of Human Behaviour, page 56:
- Though helpless, I could not help standing as mute witness and let the situation unfret without trying to do something and I almost shouted in high pitch, "Why are you beating him? What has he done to you? We are students from University and going home. We are innocent."
- To remove (a string) from the frets of a musical instrument.
- 1985, John Schneider, The Contemporary Guitar, page 108:
- Just as several notes can be played on a single bow, the guitarist can play several notes with a single pluck, using legato or ligado techniques in which the left hand continues to fret or unfret notes after the string has been plucked.
- 2011, Ken Perlman, Celtic and New England Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo, page 6:
- To avoid confusion, a 0 appears if, as is usually the case, the string is to be unfretted;
- 2011, Janita Baker, Fingerpicking Dulcimer, page 17:
- You may wish to approach the fingering by moving only one finger at a time, and only then when you absolutely must move it to a new position, or unfret the string so it may be played open.