Definitions

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

  • noun A defensive barrier of pointed inclined stakes or barbed wire.
  • noun A ruff for the neck worn in the 1500s.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To put in terror or danger.
  • noun A pancake with bacon in it.
  • noun In heraldry, the conventional strawberry-leaf, as those in the coronets of English dukes, marquises, etc.
  • noun In fortification, a defense consisting of pointed stakes driven into the ramparts in a horizontal or an inclined position. See cut under fortification.
  • noun A tool used by marble-workers for enlarging a drill-hole. It is grooved and somewhat conical.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb (Mil.) To protect, as a line of troops, against an onset of cavalry, by opposing bayonets raised obliquely forward.
  • noun (Fort.) A defense consisting of pointed stakes driven into the ramparts in a horizontal or inclined position.
  • noun (Mech.) A fluted reamer for enlarging holes in stone; a small milling cutter.
  • noun obsolete A large and thick pancake, with slices of bacon in it.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive, obsolete To terrify; endanger.
  • verb military To protect, as a line of troops, against an onset of cavalry, by opposing bayonets raised obliquely forward.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun sloping or horizontal rampart of pointed stakes
  • noun a ruff for the neck worn in the 16th century

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French, mesentery (from its pleated shape), from (feves) frasees, shelled (beans), from the resemblance between the mesentery and the peel surrounding individual broad beans, from Latin (faba) frēsa, ground (bean), feminine past participle of frendere, to crush; see frenum.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English fraisen, from Old English frēasian, frāsian ("to ask, inquire, find out by inquiry, tempt, try"), from Proto-Germanic *fraisōnan (“to try”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to try, risk”). Cognate with Middle Low German vrēsen ("to try, adjust"), Middle High German vreisen ("to endanger, terrify"), Danish friste ("to try, tempt"), Swedish fresta ("to try, tempt, tantalise"), Icelandic freista ("to tempt"). More at fraist.

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Examples

Comments

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  • up tight - going through a fraise

    May 24, 2009

  • "Another color recently popularized is the "crushed strawberry", the fraise color which French milliners introduced last year." Littel's Living Age, Oct. 20, 1883.

    December 5, 2012

  • In the industrial workshops of Toulouse, 1882...

    Louis: Merde! Just dropped strawberries all over this expensive bit of cloth we've been working on all week.

    Bertrand: Fuck. Hang on, has 'fuck' entered French yet?

    Louis: Close enough.

    Bertrand Fucque! Looks like they'll dock our wages again and we'll be peasants grovelling in crud and croissants for rest of our days.

    Louis: ça me dérange.

    Bertrand: It's kinda artistic though, you gotta admit. That big red splodge of strazzleberry bleeding across the cloth. Pink tide. Strawberry fields forever, because the stain won't wash out. Not even with Eauxmeaux in cold water. But I like it.

    Louis: Yeah, but will in play in Peorie?

    Bertrand: Dunno. We could always give it a poncy name. That's been known to work for turning any old French dreck into an object of desire.

    Louis: Any suggestions? You're the wanqueur around here.

    Bertrand: Hmmm. I'm going fraise.

    Louis: Fraise. Yes. As long as no-one confuses our design with a tool used by marble-workers for enlarging a drill-hole, or even a pancake with bacon in it worn around the neck in the 16th century.

    Bertrand: We'll wing it.

    Louis: Yeppers.

    December 7, 2012

  • It is only a fraga-mint!

    December 7, 2012

  • HaHa! Very good, 'by,

    December 7, 2012

  • Berry convincing dialog, bilby!

    December 7, 2012