[f. FRET v.2 + -ING1.] The action of covering (a ceiling, etc.) with frets or fretwork; the ornamentation so produced. Also transf.

1

1614.  Sir R. Boyle, Diary (1886), I. 49. I agree to paie the plaisterers for fretting of my gallery at Yoghall 40 marks.

2

1624.  Wotton, Archit. (1672), 63. Of this plastick Art, the chief use with us is in the graceful fretting of Roofs.

3

1801.  Southey, Thalaba, IV. x.

        Awhile he lay, and watch’d the lovely Moon,
      O’er whose broad orb the boughs
          A mazy fretting framed.

4

1858.  G. Macdonald, Phantastes, xiv. 185. The arches intersected intricately, forming a fretting of black upon the white, like the network of a skeleton-leaf.

5

1880.  Watson, in Jrnl. Linn. Soc., XV. No. 84. 227. The peculiar microscopic spiral fretting of the genus.

6