[f. FRET v.1 + -ER1.] One who or that which frets.
1. † a. A devourer (obs.). b. That which gnaws, eats away, or corrodes. Obs. exc. in vine-fetter: see quot. 1608.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 43. Terre of hym selfe is to kene, and is a fretter, and no healer, without it be medled with some of these [oil, butter, etc.].
1568–9. Act 11 Eliz., in Bolton, Stat. Irel. (1621), 298. The fretter of our lives and substance.
1607. Topsell, Serpents, 666. Vine-fretters, which are a kind of Caterpillers, or little hairy wormes with many feet, that eat vines when they begin to shoot.
1610. Markham, Masterp., II. cxxx. 432. Other Farriers vse the powder of Risagallo, or Risagre, but it is a great deale too strong a fretter.
1611. Cotgr., Tavelliere, the little worme called a Wood-fretter.
1771. Misc., in Ann. Reg., 172/2. Reaumur has proved that vine fretters do not want an union of sexes for the multiplication of their kind.
1895. Dublin Rev., CXVII. Oct., 444. He considered the generation of vine fretters from a new point of view.
2. a. One who or something which irritates or chafes. b. One who gives way to fretting or ill-temper.
a. 1503. Hawes, The Example of Virtue, viii. (Arb.), 38.
| That I may come to ayde hym beter | |
| So that fraylte to hym be no freter. |
a. 1625. Beaum. & Fl., Bloody Bro., II. ii. Give me some drink, this fire’s a plaguy fretter.
1790. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Advice to Fut. Laureat, Wks. 1812, II. 341.
| Thou plague of Post-office, the teaser, fretter, | |
| Informing clerks the way to seal a letter. |
b. 1649. Fuller, Just Man’s Fun., 19. The first are the Fretters.
a. 1732. T. Boston, Serm. (1850), 120. This doctrine reproves murmurers and fretters, under cross events of providence.
