fret

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun One of several ridges set across the fingerboard of certain stringed instruments, such as guitars.
• transitive verb To provide with frets.
• transitive verb To press (the strings of an instrument) against the frets.
• noun An ornamental design consisting of repeated and symmetrical geometric figures, often in relief, contained within a band or border.
• noun A headdress, worn by women of the Middle Ages, consisting of interlaced wire.
• transitive verb To provide with such a design or headdress.
• intransitive verb To be vexed or troubled; worry. synonym: brood.
• intransitive verb To be worn or eaten away; become corroded.
• intransitive verb To move agitatedly.
• intransitive verb To gnaw with the teeth in the manner of a rodent.
• intransitive verb To cause to be uneasy; vex.
• intransitive verb To gnaw or wear away; erode.
• intransitive verb To produce a hole or worn spot in; corrode.
• intransitive verb To form (a passage or channel) by erosion.
• intransitive verb To disturb the surface of (water or a stream); agitate.
• noun The act or an instance of fretting.
• noun A hole or worn spot made by abrasion or erosion.
• noun Irritation of mind; agitation.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To adorn; ornament; set off.
• To eat up; devour.
• To eat into; gnaw; corrode.
• To wear away; fray; rub; chafe: as, to fret cloth by friction; to fret the skin.
• To make rough; cause to ripple; disturb; agitate: as, to fret the surface of water.
• To chafe painfully or vexatiously; irritate; worry; gall.
• To be worn away, as by friction; become frayed or chafed; be wearing out or wasting.
• To make way by attrition or corrosion.
• To be worried; give way to chafed or irritated feelings; speak peevishly and complainingly.
• To be in commotion or agitation, as water; boil, bubble, or work as in fermentation; hence, to work as angry feelings; rankle.
• noun A caul of silver or gold wire, sometimes ornamented with precious stones, worn by ladies in the middle ages.
• noun A piece of interlaced or perforated ornamental work.
• noun A kind of ornament much employed in Grecian art and in sundry modifications common in various other styles.
• noun In heraldry, a charge consisting of two bendlets placed in saltier and interlaced with a mascle. Also called true-lover's knot and Harrington knot.
• To ornament with or as if with frets.
• To make a fret of.
• To fasten; bind.
• To strengthen; fill.
• noun A wearing away, abrasion, or corrosion.
• noun A place worn or abraded, as by friction.
• noun In med.: Chafing, as in the folds of the skin of fat children.
• noun Herpes; tetter.
• noun In mining, the worn side of a river-bank, where ores, or stones containing them, accumulate by being washed down the hills, and thus indicate to the miner the locality of the veins.
• noun A state of chafing or irritation, as of the mind, temper, etc.; vexation; anger: as, he keeps himself in a continual fret.
• noun The agitation of the surface of a fluid, as when fermenting or boiling; a rippling on the surface, as of water; a state of ebullition or effervescence, as of wine.
• noun A flurry.
• noun A glass composition, composed of silica, lime, soda, borax, and lead, used as a glaze by potters.
• noun In musical instruments of the lute and viol class, a small ridge of wood, ivory, metal, or other material, set across the finger-board, and serving as a fixed point for stopping or shortening the strings in playing, the fingers being applied just above it so as to press the string against it.
• To provide with frets.
• Punningly, in Shakspere, to worry as if by acting upon the frets of.
• noun A frith.