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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
fray
I.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
sb's nerves are tattered/frayed/shattered (=they feel very nervous or worried)
▪ Everyone's nerves were frayed by the end of the week.
tempers get/become frayedBritish English (= people become annoyed)
▪ People were pushing each other, and tempers were becoming frayed.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
temper
▪ We had been waiting an hour, the temperature rising, tempers fraying.
▪ Their tempers are starting to fray.
▪ With tempers fraying, it was decided to return to the question today.
▪ It was on the second day that tempers, already frayed, finally ripped.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ It was only three o'clock and tempers were already beginning to fray.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Alyssia felt her temper begin to fray.
▪ Anyone working with Mr Gates must take decisions on the spot; studies and committees fray the billionaire's patience.
▪ They cut a zig-zag edge to prevent fraying.
▪ With basic needs in increasingly short supply, the social fabric of Cairo is showing signs of fraying.
II.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
political
▪ Lord Joseph is now 71, in the House of Lords and out of the political fray.
▪ He is said, despite his years, to be fit, lucid and raring to re-enter the political fray.
■ VERB
enter
▪ Gradually, the number of individual objectors prepared to enter the fray began to expand outside the initial handful.
▪ Home venture, will enter the fray next month.
▪ The field is being actively investigated and is at an exciting stage; computational chemists have entered the fray.
▪ But the outcome is neither random, nor completely orderly: probability has entered into the fray.
▪ Credit-card companies have entered the fray, offering an additional 15 to 20 percent off service charges if their card is used.
▪ This, he believed, would spur us on before we entered the fray.
▪ This, of course, was before the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills decided to enter the fray.
join
▪ Two Hearthwares, huge in their armour, lumbered over to join in the fray.
▪ Current students joined the fray as well.
▪ At that moment Nusbaum was hurrying back from another meeting to join the fray if he could.
▪ His friend van Rappard joined the fray, urging him to stay put, as he was doing.
▪ If they want to be part of the team they have to join the fray.
▪ What is slightly more unusual is that Congress has simultaneously joined the fray.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Finally, Yusuf led into the fray his own Black Guards, consisting of 4000 men.
▪ He is shaken, and resolves to return to the fray.
▪ Kazanow grins sheepishly at the cheers before rejoining the fray below, the easy warmth between band and benefactor plainly apparent.
▪ Luckily, the boys heard the scuffle and ran out to throw themselves into the fray.
▪ The banquet recommenced but the fray had dampened and soured the atmosphere.
▪ Then King jumped into the fray and tried to persuade Republicans to replace Gingrich with Rep.
▪ Thousands of ordinary people were forced into the fray.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
fray

fray \fray\ (fr[=a]), n. [Abbreviated from affray.] An angry quarrel; an affray; contest; combat; broil.

Who began this bloody fray?
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
fray

mid-14c., "feeling of alarm," shortening of affray (q.v.; see also afraid). Meaning "a brawl, a fight" is from early 15c. (late 14c. in Anglo-Latin). Fraymaker "fighter, brawler" is found in a 1530s statute recorded by Prynne ("Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes," 1643). Nares' "Glossary" has frayment (1540s).

fray

"wear off by rubbing," c.1400, from Old French fraiier, froiier "to rub against, scrape; thrust against" (also in reference to copulation), from Latin fricare "to rub, rub down" (see friction). Intransitive sense "to ravel out" (of fabric, etc.) is from 1721. The noun meaning "a frayed place in a garment" is from 1620s. Related: Frayed; fraying.

Wiktionary
fray

Etymology 1 n. affray; broil; contest; combat; brawl; melee. Etymology 2

vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To unravel; used particularly for the edge of something made of cloth, or the end of a rope. 2 (context intransitive figuratively English) To cause exhaustion, wear out (a person's mental strength). 3 (context transitive archaic English) frighten; alarm 4 (context transitive English) To bear the expense of; to defray. 5 (context intransitive English) To rub.

WordNet
fray
  1. n. a noisy fight [syn: affray, disturbance, ruffle]

  2. v. wear away by rubbing; "The friction frayed the sleeve" [syn: frazzle]

  3. cause friction; "my sweater scratches" [syn: rub, fret, chafe, scratch]

Wikipedia
Fray

Fray or Frays or The Fray may refer to:

  • Affray, public order offence
  • Unravel, as in a fraying rope
Fray (film)

Fray is a 2012 independent film starring Bryan Kaplan and Marisa Costa. It was written and directed by Geoff Ryan.

Fray was the winner of numerous awards during its film festival run, including Best Feature Film at both the UK Film Festival and the Arizona International Film Festival.

Fray (comics)

Fray is an eight-issue comic book limited series, a futuristic spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, the series follows a Slayer named Melaka Fray, a chosen one in a time where vampires (called "lurks") are returning to the slums of New York City, and the rich-poor divide is even greater. Volume one is drawn by Karl Moline ( pencils) and Andy Owens ( inks).

The series was published by Dark Horse Comics beginning in 2001, with delays between the first six and the final two issues caused by Whedon's TV commitments, during which Moline illustrated Route 666 for CrossGen Comics. After the series' conclusion in August 2003, a trade paperback collecting the whole series was also published by Dark Horse. In a short video promoting the charity Equality Now Joss Whedon confirmed that "Fray is not done, Fray is coming back. More than that, I will not say." This was reiterated in 2007's Comic Con where Joss stated that he "absolutely would be returning to that world." Fray next appears as a main character in the 2008 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight crossover story arc, " Time of Your Life", by Whedon and Moline.

The series was closely linked to the concurrently airing seventh season of Buffy, with coinciding depictions of the Slayer's mystical scythe and her origins, a major contributor to the expansion of the canonical " Buffyverse" in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other related stories are set. Melaka Fray also appears in the story "Tales", by the same creative team as the series, in the anthology comic book Tales of the Slayers.

Fray (surname)

Fray is a surname. Notable people with the name include:

  • Mohamed Iheb Fray (born 1988), Tunisian electrical engineer
  • Arron Fray (born 1987), English soccer player
  • Daniella Fray (born 1990), British actress, screenwriter and producer
  • David Fray (born 1981), French classical pianist
  • Derek Fray FRS, British material scientist and professor
  • Sir John Fray (died 1461), English lawyer and court official
  • Michael Fray (born 1947), Jamaican sprinter
  • Terryn Fray (born 1991), Bermudan cricketer
  • Tom Fray (born 1979), English cricketer
Fictional
  • Melaka Fray, protagonist in the Fray comic book series

Usage examples of "fray".

Keeping Israel and Jordan Out of the Fray If the United States were to embark on an invasion, Washington would need to keep both Jerusalem and Amman out of it.

Leaving his pack to eat their fill upon the flesh of their victims--flesh that he could not touch--Tarzan of the Apes pursued the single survivor of the bloody fray.

With great dignity he unwound his bandana handkerchief from his old fiddle and proceeded to tune for the fray.

There he was greeted by the parliamentary member, the representatives of the local council, various trembling beadles and burghers, and a squad of shrunken, bemedalled regimental pensioners in their frayed crimson tunics, ready for one final war.

As legionnaires continued to battle Woads on the back of the carriage, Tristran and Bors unleashed arrow after arrow into the fray.

One of the men held the fray while Ramon beat him with the leaded buttstock of his wrist quirt.

The Calamarian cruiser fired a storm of retaliatory bolts, while the remaining Corellian gunships spread out, launching themselves into the fray .

Then Cardiff came lunging into the fray with a mad snarl that fairly reeked of trouble, a warning that the masked man heeded on the instant.

Fray Diego Martinez was born in La Mancha, and professed in the province of Castilla in 1613.

Misiones al cargo del Colegio de Tarija, por Fray Antonio Camajuncosa.

Billy had kept Cottle on the porch past the five-minute deadline, the freak might be playing payback, making them wait so their nerves would fray a little, to teach them not to screw with the big dog.

The hero of Bern distinguished himself, as usual, in this fray, until, hearing that Nudung, the two Hun princes, and his young brother, Diether, had all been slain, he became almost insane with grief.

I think I would have preferred to see him in the Dixieland male uniform of choice: a bass-fishing T-shirt and frayed jeans.

Hackworth, whose adrenal glands had finally jumped into the endocrinological fray.

Without waiting to acknowledge him, Daryth again leaped into the fray as a Firbolg came close.