frounce

/fɹaʊns/

frounce noun: a canker in the mouth of a hawk.

Noun

frounce (plural frounces)

A canker in the mouth of a hawk.
- The hawke had no lyst
  To come to his fyst;
  She loked as she had the frounce; […]c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 64, lines 83–85
- I say that the eyass 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.1820, [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and...
A plait or curl.

Verb

frounce (third-person singular simple present frounces, present participle frouncing, simple past and past participle frounced)

(ambitransitive, rare) To curl.
- Beard untrimmed by barber's shears,
  Hair all frouncing 'bout his ears,1879, Harmon Seeley Babcock, "The Peanut Man", in Trifles, Providence Press Company (1879), page 43
- As though to give him a warlike note, his clothes were thrown on in a slovenly way, and his moustache frounced out so shock and bristling that it seemed from each hair-end a crackling oath must start with every word he said.1887, Julian Corbett, For God and Gold, Macmillan and Co, page 214
(rare) To crease, wrinkle, to frown.
- He frounced his brow, and from his scornful eye
  Shot wrath indignant, and disdain and pride,1871, George Mac-Henry, Time and Eternity: A Poem, A L Bancroft and Company (1871), page 42
- Mury, however, frounced her brows, and made Sir Tyke Winchap's niece a profound courtesy behind her back.1885 December, “The Old Corner Shop: A Story of Very Poor Humanity”, in The Phrenological Magazine
To gather into or adorn with plaits, as a dress.

Examples of frounce in a sentence

Under the day-long beating of the sun their brow is frounced out, […]1888, Charles M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, volume 1, Cambridge, page 498:
"But they know who you are?" I asked, and frounced my brow in skeptical doubt.2000, Patrick Madden, "Down on Batlle's Farm", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 33, Number 2, Summer 2000, page 160

Forms of frounce

Noun
plural	frounces
Verb
third-person singular present	frounces
present participle	frouncing
past participle	frounced
past	frounced

Origin of frounce

From Middle English frouncen, from Old French froncir "to wrinkle, frown", from Frankish *hrunkiju (“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.

Words that rhyme with frounce

2 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about frounce

What does frounce mean?: Frounce means a canker in the mouth of a hawk.
How do you use frounce in a sentence?: Under the day-long beating of the sun their brow is frounced out, […]
What part of speech is frounce?: Frounce can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce frounce?: Frounce is pronounced /fɹaʊns/.
What is the plural of frounce?: The plural of frounce is frounces.

Words near frounce in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: frounce (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-frounce.wav.

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