[Metathetic form of FIRTH sb.2; possibly suggested by the form FRITH sb.2 = FIRTH sb.1, or by the once commonly supposed derivation from L. fretum.] = FIRTH2.
1600. Holland, Livy, 1375. The Tyber … brake out many times, and having found a frith or creeke, it beat upon the foot of the Aventine.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 919. The warie fiend Stood … Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith He had to cross.
a. 1608. Temple, Hist. Eng. (1699), 37. The Neck of Land between the two Fryths about Sterling and Glasco.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 242–3. This delay or hinderance gave time to the English, under sir George Bing, to come to the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to go up the frith with the flood.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 16.
| Lands intersected by a narrow frith | |
| Abhor each other. |
1806. Gazetteer Scotl., Introd. 7. The Friths of Forth and Clyde.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., Concl. 113.
| The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, | |
| And catch at every mountain head, | |
| And o’er the friths that branch and spread | |
| Their sleeping silver thro’ the hills. |
