[f. FRINGE sb.]
1. trans. To furnish, adorn, or encircle with a fringe or something resembling a fringe. Chiefly in pa. pple.
1480. Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV. (1830), 143. An other sperver … frenged with frenge of silk.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 342. Theyr woman are valiant: and sumptuous in theyr apparell and other tyrementes. For they so rychely frynge and byset the same with perles, precious stones, and golde, that nothynge can be more excellent.
1665. Hooke, Microgr., 174. Nor is this edge onely thus fring’d.
1698. J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 37. The Forms of the Bastions are Square, sending forth Curtains fringed with Battlements from one to the other; in whose Interstitiums whole Culverin are traversed.
1717. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. to Lady Rich, 1 April. They are covered … with … cloth … very often richly embroidered and fringed.
1821. Clare, The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems, II. 164. Sonnets. xvi. Day-break.
| When day’s first rays, the far hill top adorning, | |
| Fring’d the blue clouds with gold: O doubly charm’d | |
| I hung in raptures then on early Morning. |
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), II. 9. The wheat fly itself is very small … with rounded wings, fringed with short hairs.
1850. Hawthorne, Scarlet L., vii. (1883), 125. A pair of gloves, which she had fringed and embroidered to his order.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., II. 165. A long tract of moorland, fringed with villages at intervals on spots where the richer soil had tempted the settlers of prehistoric times to plant their homesteads, and leave their names behind them.
1888. F. Hume, Madame Midas, 1. Prol., Fringing the wet sands with many coloured wreaths of sea-weed and delicate shells.
fig. 1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 250. When he hath set downe some wicked Doctrine, presently to lace and fringe it with Precepts of Fasting, Prayer, or Good manners.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), II. II. 20. The transaction … was fringd with such cautelous restraints that he was sure to keep the better end of the staff still to himself.
1828. Sporting Mag., XXII. 233. The old Gentleman’s memory is fringed with exemplary characteristics.
2. To serve as a fringe to; to present the appearance of a fringe upon.
1794. W. Hutchinson, Hist. Cumberld., I. 188. The wood that fringes the border of the rivers.
1813. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., 65.
| Why, beautiful nymph, do you close | |
| The curtain that fringes your eye? | |
| Why veil in the clouds of repose | |
| The sun that should brighten our sky? |
1859. W. S. Coleman, Woodlands (1866), 84. The Alder loves also to fringe the margins of our lakes and pools, and in all these situations becomes a characteristic and ornamental adjunct.
1865. E. B. Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind, xii. 342. Close upon the Esquimaux who fringe the northern coast.
1873. Tristram, Moab, viii. 153. Camels in scattered order, browsing, and lifting their tall necks, fringed the horizon.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner., 338. They are frequently connected by means of a narrow band, fringing the lateral edge of the bundle, and consisting of some sieve-tubes.
3. To fritter or trifle away. rare.
1863. G. Eliot, in Cross, Life (1885), II. 367. Such fringing away of precious life, in thinking of carpets and tables, is an affliction to me.
