Word.ws English Dictionary

fraist

fraist verb: to try; test; prove; put to the proof; make trial (of).

Verb

fraist (third-person singular simple present fraists, present participle fraisting, simple past and past participle fraisted)

  1. (UK, ambitransitive, dialectal, obsolete) To try; test; prove; put to the proof; make trial (of).
    • Þen found he no frekes to fraist on his strenght.1540, Destruction of Troy
  2. (UK, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To learn by trial; experience.
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To seek to learn; ask; inquire.
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To seek; be eager for; desire.
  5. (intransitive, obsolete) To go forth on an expedition; sally forth.

Forms of fraist

third-person singular presentfraists
present participlefraisting
past participlefraisted
pastfraisted

Origin of fraist

From Middle English fraisten, freisten, frasten, from Old Norse freista (“to try, tempt, make trial of”), from Proto-Germanic *fraistōną (“to try”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to try, risk”). Cognate with Icelandic freista (“to tempt”), Swedish fresta (“to try, tempt, tantalise”), Danish friste (“to try, tempt”), Old English frāsian (“to ask, inquire, tempt, try”). More at fraise.

Questions about fraist

What does fraist mean?
Fraist means to try; test; prove; put to the proof; make trial (of).
What part of speech is fraist?
Fraist is a verb.
What is the past tense of fraist?
The past tense of fraist is fraisted.

Words near fraist in the dictionary

  1. fraises des bois
  2. fraises du bois
  3. fraisier
  4. fraisiers
  5. fraising
  6. fraist
  7. Fraisthorpe
  8. fraisting
  9. Fraizer
  10. Fraizers
  11. frak

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fraist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fraist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fraist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.