Forms: 1 (ȝe)fyrhðe, fyr(h)ð, 4 friht, fryht, 5 freth, 9 Kent. fright (-wood), 6 fryth(e, 3– frith. Also FIRTH sb.1 [OE. (ȝe)fyrhðe str. neut. (also fyrhð str. fem.):—OTeut. type *(ga)furhiþjom (see below). In ME. and in mod.E. the word seems to have been confused with others of similar sound: see the remarks under senses 1 and 4 below.
The OTeut. type *(ga)furhiþjom would appear to be a collective f. *furhâ FIR; but there is no trace in Eng. of the etymological sense ‘fir-wood,’ and as firs seem to have been not very abundant in early times in this country, the development of the general sense ‘wooded or waste land’ must have taken place on the continent. Cf., however, the mod.Ger. forchdistel, forchgras, forchheide (Grimm), which seem to contain a word that may be the source of med.L. frocus (OF. frou) waste land; if so fyṙhðe may be derived from it.
With regard to the form-history in Eng., the reduced form fyrðe is represented by FIRTH sb.1, and with metathesis by frith. The fuller form fyrhðe is represented, with metathesis, by ME. friht, mod.Kentish fright-wood.
The Welsh ffridd, ffrith, often given as the etymon, are adopted forms of the Eng. word.
To the scanty evidence for the OE. fyrhð(e must be added the place-name Pirbright in Surrey, which in documents of 13th and 14th c. appears as Pirifirith, Pirifright, Pirifrith, Purifright:—OE. *piriȝ-fyrhðe pear-‘frith’: see Cal. Close Rolls, 1326, p. 622, Manning & Bray, Surrey, I. 145, Surrey Fines (Surrey Archæol. Soc.) 22.]
1. With uncertain meaning, denoting a wood of some kind, or wooded country collectively, esp. in poet. phrases associated with fell, field.
In the later quots. the word occurs only as a poetical archaism of vague meaning. In the earlier quots. it may have had the more definite sense explained under 2. In senses 1, 2 there may be confusion with FIRTH sb.1 2 a.
826[?]. Charter of Ecgberht, in Birch, Cart. Sax., I. 545. Þonne on þone haȝan to witan fyrðe.
89B. Charter of Ælfred (Farleigh, Kent), ibid. II. 220. Ðonne is ðæt suð land ȝemære ðæs cinges west andlang ðæs fyrhðes oð ðone bradan weȝ.
956[?]. Charter of Eadwig, ibid. III. 120. Of þan stapole on accan ȝefyrhðe.
973–4. (MS. 12th c.) Charter of Eadgar (Hants) ibid. III. 632. On ðet wot treow æt ðere baran fyrhðe.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 7697. In feild and tun, in frith and fell.
a. 1310. in Wright’s, Lyric P., x. 36. In a fryht … y founde a wel feyr fenge to fere.
c. 1320. Kyng & Hermit, 20, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 13. The grete herte for to hunte, In frythys and in felle.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 2216. Þei trauailed al a niȝt, out of forest & friþes & alle faire wodes.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XII. 219. And of the floures in the fryth and of her feire hewes.
1562. Phaer, Æneid, IX. Aa iij. A Pynetree frith I had [Lat. pinea silva mihi].
1573–80. Golding, To Rdr., in Baret’s Alv., A v/i. In plant, or tree, By natures gift abroad in frith and feeld.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xi. 174. As over Holt and Heath, as thorough Frith [margin, high wood] and Fell.
1855. P. J. Bailey, Mystic, 83.
| Where now stretch | |
| Forest and upland frith. |
2. A piece of land grown sparsely with trees or with underwood only. Also, a space between woods; unused pasture land (see quots.). Now only dial.
1538. Leland, Itin. (ed. 2, 1745), II. 3. From Maidenhedde Town a 2 Miles by narow wooddy Way to the Frithe, and so thorough the Frithe 3 Miles. Ibid. (margin), Fruticea Sylva, Angl. Frithe.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 5 b. Frythe is a plain between woods.
1641. N. Riding Rec., IV. 216. The inhabts. of Sheriff Hutton [presented] for not repairing the highway leading from Stitnam to le Frith.
1790. Mrs. A. Wheeler, Westmld. Dial. (1840), Frith, unused pasture land.
1869. in Peacock, Lonsdale Gloss., 33.
1887. Kentish Gloss., Frith … a thin, scrubby wood, with little or no timber, and consisting mainly of inferior growths.
1892. Northumbld. Gloss., Frith, a clearing in a forest.
3. Brushwood, underwood; sometimes forming a hedge, hedgewood.
1605. Rec. Chippenham, 194, in Wilts Gloss. (1893), s.v., Itm to James Smalwood for an Acre and halfe of hedginge frith out of Heywood … Item for felling the same frith.
1631. Markham, Weald of Kent, II. i. (1668), 2. It will grow to frith or wood, if it be not continually … laboured with the plough.
1668. Worlidge, Dict. Rust., Frith, underwood, or the shroud of Trees.
1670. J. Smith, England’s Improv. Reviv’d, 27. A dead Hedge … made of dead wood, as Bushes and Frith, which is all sorts of small wood that are not Thorns. Ibid., 31. Frith … is all small lops or shreadings of trees, as also all Under-woods.
1796. W. Marshall, W. England, I. 326. Frith: brushwood.
1813. T. Davis, Agric. Wilts, 267. Frith, thorns or bush underwood.
1853. Cooper, Sussex Gloss. (ed. 2), Frith, young underwood growing by the side of hedges.
1863. Wise, New Forest, 183. Frith, too, still means copse-wood.
4. A hedge; esp. one made of wattled brushwood; also, a hurdle.
[Although this sense appears to be chiefly a development of sense 3, it may partly belong to other words of similar form but etymologically unconnected. (1) The sense ‘hedge,’ and the related FRITH v.2 1, might without difficulty be regarded as special uses of FRITH sb.1 and v.1; cf. MHG. vride (= FRITH sb.1) used in the senses of ‘fence, fenced place,’ mod.Ger. einfriedigen to fence in. (2) As in S.W. dialects both fr- and wr- are represented by vr-, it is possible that frith in the sense of ‘wattled work’ may be partly a literary rendering of a dialectal vrith, vreath connected with OE. wrlðan (see WRITHE, WREATHE).]
[c. 1430. Durh. MS. Cell. Roll, Item in fridys, vjd. Item in cirpis, vjd.]
1511–1647. MS. Acc. St. John’s Hosp., Canterb., in Kent. Gloss., s.v., To enclose the vij acres wt. a quyk fryth before the Fest of the Purification.
1810. Voc. Dev. & Cornw., in Monthly Mag., XXIX. 466. Frith, writh, wattles or hurdles, placed in a gap.
1864. A. T. Quiller-Couch, E. Cornwall Wds., in Jrnl. Roy. Inst. Cornw., Mar., Freath, or Vreath, a wattled gap in a hedge.
1884. Blackw. Mag., CXXXVI. 785/1. I was getting over a frith [foot-note, hurdle] by Nicholls’s cow-house.
1887. Kent. Gloss., Frith, a hedge.
† b. The same used as a fish-weir. Obs.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 30 a. The Weare is a frith, reaching slope-wise through the Ose, from the land to low water marke, and hauing in it, a bunt or cod with an eye-hooke, where the fish entring, vpon their comming backe with the ebbe, are stopped from issuing out againe, forsaken by the water, and left drie on the Ose.
5. attrib. and Comb., as † frith-copse, † -man, -wood; † frith-pear, the name of a kind of pear; frith-work (dial.), wattling.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 32. In this greene *frithcops a new sight newly repressed Long feareful dangers.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 5597. Fiue thousand olifants in fere þa *frithmenn him broȝt.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 217. *Frith-Pear, Arundel-Pears (also to bake).
1887. Kent. Gloss., s.v. Frith, Though some of the old woods bearing this name may now, by modern treatment, have been made much thicker and more valuable, they are also still called, as of old, *fright-woods, as the Fright Woods, near Bedgebury.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 134. The *frithe-work, or wattling, was made upon willow or sallow stakes, which immediately growing, formed both shelter and security for the young hedge-rows.
