arch. [f. FRAY v.1 + -ED1.] (The pple. passing into ppl. a.) Afraid, frightened.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 5814 (Cott.). A neddir it was, and he was fraid.
1330. [see AFRAID 1].
c. 1470. Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, VI. 579.
| The fute men come, the quhilk I spak off ayr, | |
| On frayt folk set strakis sad and sayr. |
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. clxix. 206. The founde no encounterers, for all the countre was so frayed, that euery man drue to the fortresses.
a. 1555. Lyndesay, Tragedy, 183.
| That peace brokin, arrose new mortall weris, | |
| Be sey and land sic reif without releif, | |
| Quhilk to report my frayit hart afferis. |
1608. Topsell, Serpents (1658), 795. The Ape is as fraid thereof, as it is of the Snail.
1827. Hood, Mids. Fairies, vii.
| Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek, | |
| Like a fray’d bird in the grey owlet’s beak. |
1866. G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., xii. (1878), 238. Without moving, and still with a curve in her form like the neck of a frayed horse.
Proverb.
1534. Whittington, The Thre Bookes of Tullyes Offyces, I. (1540), 36. More frayde than hurte.
1546. J. Heywood, Prov. (1867), 9.
| Shall so feare all thyng, that he shall let fall all, | |
| And be more fraid then hurt, if the thinges were doone. |
b. quasi-sb. in phr. for fraid = for fear. (Cf. FERD sb.2)
1536. Gray, in State P. Hen. VIII., II. 355. Duetie to my Maister, and force, constraynyth me therto, for frayd of worse to comme herafter.
1889. N. W. Linc. Gloss., s.v. For fraid … ‘for fear.’
Hence Frayedly adv., Frayedness.
1530. Palsgr., 222/2. Fraydnesse, esmoy.
1560. Rolland, The Court of Venus, II. 347. All for frayitnes he fell in extasie.
1570. Henry’s Wallace, IV. 244. Frayitlie [MS. ferdely] thai rais, that war in to thai waynis.
