[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To freeze, frost-bite, nip with frost. To frost off: to cause to drop off with frost. Chiefly fig.
1807. [see FROSTED 1].
1818. Keats, Endym., III. 188. At this, a surprised start Frosted the springing verdure of his heart.
1871. Blackie, Four Phases, i. 48–9. Individuals whose social sympathies have been frosted in early life, may grow up into a monstrous incarnation of selfishness, living by the practice of systematic falsity.
1884. Tennyson, Becket, I. iv. The golden leaves, these earls and barons, that clung to me, frosted off me by the first cold frown of the King.
1887. Darlington, Folk-speech S. Cheshire, Gloss., Frost, to spoil by the frost, of potatoes.
2. To cover with or as with rime; also with over. Chiefly fig.
1635. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Banish’d Virg., 153. Such beauties as Aurora takes oft-times pleasure, in first frosting over with her canded dewes.
1787–9. Wordsw., Evening Walk. The rising moon, While with a hoary light she frosts the ground.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 73. Nitre … frosts with branching plumes the mouldering walls.
1861. Times, 22 Oct. These camps increase in number and in size till the white canvass frosts every knoll.
1890. C. Dixon, Stray Feathers, ii. 26. He [the plumassier] frosts the feathers of some with gold and silver; and by endless combinations tries to supply the endless thirst for novelty in the female heart.
3. To give a frosted surface to (glass or metal); to make (glass) to resemble ice.
1832. [see FROSTING 1].
1849. [see FROSTED 5 b].
4. To treat (a horse’s shoes) by the insertion of frost-nails, roughing, etc., as a protection against slipping in frosty weather; to shoe (a horse) in this way.
1572. in Gage, Hist. Hengrave (1822), 192. For frosting the cart-horses at Thetford … vd.
1665. Pepys, Diary, 26 Nov. I … set out, after my horses’ being frosted, which I know not what it means to this day.
1752. J. Macsparran, America Dissected (1753), 39. With a Horse well caulk’d and frosted, ’tis fine Travelling.
1831. Sir J. Sinclair, Corr., II. 189. I could not get the shoes of my horses frosted.
1877. N. W. Linc. Gloss., Frost, to turn up the hinder part of a horse’s shoes, or to put frost-nails in them to hinder the animal from slipping on ice.
