Word.ws English Dictionary

fretting

/ˈfɹɛtɪŋ/

fretting noun: an irritation or worrying; a worry. Also the present participle and gerund of fret.

Noun

fretting (plural frettings)

  1. An irritation or worrying; a worry.
    • [I]t is highly likely that some preachers may have called on millennial frettings for their purposes. The theologian Abbo of Fleury recalled a premillennial sermon in his youth which did precisely this.1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 184
  2. A gnawing or eating away.

Also used as

fretting is also the present participle and gerund of fret.

Forms of fretting

pluralfrettings

Words formed from fretting

Phrases with fretting

Words that rhyme with fretting

Questions about fretting

What does fretting mean?
Fretting means an irritation or worrying; a worry.
What part of speech is fretting?
Fretting is a noun.
How do you pronounce fretting?
Fretting is pronounced /ˈfɹɛtɪŋ/.
What is the plural of fretting?
The plural of fretting is frettings.

Words near fretting in the dictionary

  1. fretter
  2. fretters
  3. frettest
  4. fretteth
  5. frettiness
  6. fretting
  7. fretting leprosy
  8. fretting the gizzard
  9. frettingly
  10. frettings
  11. fretts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fretting (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.

Last updated:

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