Past tense of fray
regular verb
The past tense of fray is frayed. The past participle is also frayed.
Forms of fray
| Base form (V1) | fray /fɹeɪ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | frayed /fɹeɪd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | frayed /fɹeɪd/ |
| Present participle | fraying /ˈfɹeɪ.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | frays /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/ |
Frayed in a sentence
- The hectic day ended in her nerves frayed.
- The laces frayed at the cut end.
- The rope has frayed where it bears on the rim of the wheel.From the entry bear
- He struggled with sentencing his frayed and angry verses from poem to prose.From the entry sentencing
- I looked critically at the frayed carpet of the hotel room.From the entry critically
Meaning of fray
- verb To rub or wear away (something); to cause (something made of strands twisted or woven together, such as cloth or rope) to unravel through friction; also, to irritate (something) through chafing or rubbing; to chafe.
- verb Of a deer: to rub (its antlers or head) against a tree, etc., to remove the velvet from antlers or to mark territory; also, to rub its antlers against (a tree, etc.) for that purpose.
- verb To force or make (a path, way, etc.) through.
Questions about the past tense of fray
- What is the past tense of fray?
- The past tense of fray is frayed.
- What is the past participle of fray?
- The past participle of fray is frayed.
- Is fray a regular or irregular verb?
- Fray is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fray (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of fray.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/fray. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.