Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To fold or wrinkle.
- To curl or frizzle, as hair.
- To adorn with fringes, frills, or other ornaments of dress.
- To wrinkle the forehead; frown.
- noun A flounce, fold, plait, or frill, as of a garment; a wrinkle; a crease.
- noun A disease in hawks in which white spittle gathers about the bill.
- noun A disease in a horse's mouth in which a mass of pimples appears on the palate; the pimples themselves.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To gather into or adorn with plaits, as a dress; to form wrinkles in or upon; to curl or frizzle, as the hair.
- intransitive verb obsolete To form wrinkles in the forehead; to manifest displeasure; to frown.
- noun obsolete A wrinkle, plait, or curl; a flounce; -- also, a frown.
- noun An affection in hawks, in which white spittle gathers about the hawk's bill.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
canker in the mouth of ahawk . - verb rare To
curl . - verb rare To
crease ,wrinkle , tofrown .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Middle English frouncen, from Old French froncir "to wrinkle, frown", from Frankish *hrunkja "a wrinkle" from Proto-Germanic *hrunkijō, *hrunkitō (“fold, wrinkle”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Akin to Old High German runza "fold, wrinkle, crease" (German Runzel "wrinkle"), Middle Dutch ronse "frown", Old Norse hrukka "wrinkle, crease" (Icelandic hrukka "wrinkle, crease, ruck"). More at ruck2.
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Examples
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I say that the eyas should have her meat unwashed, until she becomes a brancher — ’twere the ready way to give her the frounce, to wash her meat sooner, and so knows every one who knows a gled from a falcon.”
The Abbot 2008
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7 Some frounce their curled hair in courtly guise; frounce > twist into folds, plait guise > manner
The Faerie Queene — Volume 01 Edmund Spenser
BrokenEye commented on the word frounce
Why is there a word for "a canker in the mouth of a hawk"? Is that really something we need a specific word for? Why not just call it a canker?
March 24, 2014
ruzuzu commented on the word frounce
*quietly adds this word to falconry and farriery lists*
March 24, 2014
yarb commented on the word frounce
Why have a specific word for anything? Why not just grunt and point?
March 24, 2014
ruzuzu commented on the word frounce
*frowns*
March 24, 2014
ry commented on the word frounce
*France*
March 24, 2014
ruzuzu commented on the word frounce
*flounces in*
March 24, 2014
ruzuzu commented on the word frounce
*flounces out*
March 24, 2014
yarb commented on the word frounce
Save the last flounce for me!
March 24, 2014
ruzuzu commented on the word frounce
*rearranges flounce card*
March 24, 2014
bilby commented on the word frounce
I luvs me a good frouncing.
March 24, 2014
qms commented on the word frounce
He listens to boring accounts
Of places he cannot pronounce,
Hiding incomprehension
With feigned close attention
And solemn executive frounce.
September 3, 2018