fret
/fɹɛt/verb, noun
fret is spelled F-R-E-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, fret means “To chafe or irritate; to worry” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in fret?
| Letters | 4: F-R-E-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words; the 20,356th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is fret?
Fret appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce fret?
- US /fɹɛt/
- Australia /fɹet/
- /fɾɛt/
As a noun (“A fog or mist at sea, or coming inland from the sea”): /fɹɛt/, /fɹɛt/, /fɹet/.
Fret has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-fret.ogg, En-au-fret.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with fret?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as fret from its last stressed vowel (/ɛt/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: terf, tref, reft.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of fret
- frets present, singular, he/she/it, plural
- fretting participle, present
- fretted past, participle
- fretten participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does fret mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
obsoleteEspecially when describing animals: to consume, devour, or eat.
- 2
To chafe or irritate; to worry.
- 3
To make rough, to agitate or disturb; to cause to ripple.
the brooks fretting down their channels
- 4
In the form fret out: to squander, to waste.
- 5
To gnaw; to consume, to eat away.
- 6
To mine by agitating or eating away at (ore in the bank of a river).
- 7
To be chafed or irritated; to be angry or vexed; to utter peevish expressions through irritation or worry.
- 8
To be worn away; to chafe; to fray.
A wristband frets on the edges.
- 9
To decorate or ornament, especially with an interlaced or interwoven pattern, or (architecture) with carving or relief (raised) work.
- 10
To form a pattern on; to variegate.
- 11
To cut through with a fretsaw, to create fretwork.
- 12
To bind, to tie, originally with a loop or ring.
- 13
# To fit frets on to (a musical instrument).
to fret a guitar
- 14
To press down the string behind a fret.
noun
- 1
Agitation of the surface of a fluid by fermentation or some other cause; a rippling on the surface of water.
- 2
Agitation of the mind marked by complaint and impatience; disturbance of temper; irritation.
He keeps his mind in a continual fret.
- 3
Herpes; tetter (“any of various pustular skin conditions”).
- 4
The worn sides of riverbanks, where ores or stones containing them accumulate after being washed down from higher ground, which thus indicate to miners the locality of veins of ore.
- 5
An ornamental pattern consisting of repeated vertical and horizontal lines, often in relief.
- 6
A saltire interlaced with a mascle.
- 7
One of the pieces of metal, plastic or wood across the neck of a guitar or other string instrument that marks where a finger should be positioned to depress a string as it is played.
- 8
obsoleteA ferrule, a ring.
- 9
A channel, a strait; a fretum.
- 10
A fog or mist at sea, or coming inland from the sea.
- 11
rareA channel or passage created by the sea.
noun
- 1
Förster resonance energy transfer
- 2
fluorescence resonance energy transfer, which is a type of the Förster phenomenon where one or both of the partners in the energy transfer are fluorescent chromophores
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Fret in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | dévorer, consumer, manger , inquiéter, tracasser, ronger |
| German | verschlingen, essen, fressen , aufregen, ärgern, belästigen |
| Spanish | preocuparse, comerse la cabeza , consumir , inquietarse, ansiarse, afanarse |
| Portuguese | traste |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does fret come from?
From Middle English frēten (“to eat (at), corrode, destroy, annoy”), from Old English fretan (“to eat up, devour; to fret; to break, burst”), from Proto-West Germanic *fraetan, from Proto-Germanic *fraetaną (“to consume, devour, eat up”), from Proto-Germanic *fra- (“for-, prefix meaning ‘completely, fully’”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pro- (“forward, toward”)) + *etaną (“to eat”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”)).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).