Sc. Forms: 5–6 frete, 6–9 freet, 7 freite, 8 fret, 7– freit. [a. ON. frêtt fem., news, inquiry, augury, corresponding to OE. freht (for *freoht, friht), oracle (whence frihtere diviner, frihtrian to divine), from the root of FRAYNE.]
Anything to which superstition attaches; an omen; a superstitious formula or charm; a superstitious observance or act of worship.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 28310 (Cott.).
| I … folud wiche-crafte and frete, | |
| And charmyng, crist þer-of me bete! |
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VI. xviii. 361.
| Syne þai herd, þat Makbeth aye | |
| In fantown Fretis had gret Fay. |
1533. Bellenden, Livy, I. (1822), 42. The Albanis hallowit thair fretis, and terribill conjuraciouns.
1597. Jas. I., Daemonol., I. iv. 11. All kinde of practicques, freites, or other like extraordinarie actiones, which cannot adide the true toche of naturall reason.
17[?]. Adam o’ Gordon, xxvii. in Pinkerton, Select Sc. Ballads (1783), I. 49.
| Wha luik to freits, my master deir, | |
| Fretts will ay follow them: | |
| Let it neir be said, Adam o Gordon | |
| Was daunted by a dame. |
1768. Song in Ross’ Helenore, 147.
| Fouk need no on fraits to be standing, | |
| That’s marry’d and woo’d an’ a.’ |
1868. G. Macdonald, R. Falconer, III. 70. ‘I dream aboot him whiles sae lifelike that I canna believe him deid. But that’s a’ freits (superstitions).’
Hence Freity a., superstitious.
1788. J. Macaulay, Poems (1790), 122.
| I … saw a blade fast sticking to my hose, | |
| An’, being freety, stack it up my nose. |
1818. Edin. Mag., Sept., 154. Deeply imbued with the superstitious and freitty observances of his native land.
