frit

• IPA^(key): /fɹɪt/

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• Rhymes: -ɪt

Either from French fritte, from frit (“fried”), or else from Italian fritta f (“fried”).

frit (countable and uncountable, plural frits)

1. A fused mixture of materials used to make glass.
2. (archaeology) A similar material used in the manufacture of ceramic beads and small ornaments. (eastern Mediterranean; Bronze and Iron Age)

• frit brick
• fritless
• fritware

frit (third-person singular simple present frits, present participle fritting, simple past and past participle fritted)

1. To add frit to a glass or ceramic mixture
2. To prepare by heat (the materials for making glass); to fuse partially.
   • 1831, Benjamin Silliman, Elements of Chemistry:

     equal parts of the calcined and roasted ore, of ground flints and potash, are fritted together and then fused

Dialectal past participle of fright (“frighten”), formed on the model of bite:bit and light:lit. Compare the parallel formation fit (“fought”).

By the late 20th century, largely confined to the Lincolnshire dialect, but adopted into political slang in the 1980s from the speeches of Grantham-born Margaret Thatcher.

frit (comparative more frit, superlative most frit)

1. (UK, regional, now especially politics) Frightened.
   • 1983 Margaret Thatcher, Prime minister's questions, 19 April:

     The right hon. Gentleman is afraid of an election, is he? Afraid? Frightened? Frit? Could not take it? Cannot stand it? If I were going to cut and run, I should have gone after the Falklands.

   • 2016, Alan Moore, Jerusalem, Liveright, published 2016, page 272:

     “We shoulder life. We know its ins and outs. We've felt the draught at either end of it. What you're most frit of, that's our bread and jam, and none of us ain't got no time to spare on ignorant, bad-mannered little boys.”

frit (plural frits)

1. (UK politics, derogatory) A politician who does perform some action (for example answering a question or calling a vote) out of fear of losing.
   • 2022, Peter Fortune, “Impact of ULEZ expansion and road charging (Supplementary)”, in Questions to the Mayor (London Assembly)‎^[1]:

     Why are you not going to bother? You are scared? You are a frit? Is that the problem?

frit (plural frits)

1. A frit fly.

• frit away
• frit fly

• FTIR, rift

frit

1. neuter singular of fri

Inherited from Old French, from Latin frīctus.

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frit (feminine frite, masculine plural frits, feminine plural frites)

1. past participle of frire

frit (feminine frite, masculine plural frits, feminine plural frites)

1. fried

• frire
• friture

• frite

• “frit”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Uncertain;^[1] proposed derivations include:

• From a root common to Ancient Greek θρίξ (thríx, “hair”).
• From Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewd-. Cognates include Latin frutex (“shrub”), Old English brēotan (“to break”), Old Irish broth (“awn”) and maybe Lithuanian brùzgas (“bush, shrub”).

frit n (indeclinable)

1. awn

• arista

• “frit”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• frit in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

From Old French fruit, from Latin fructus.

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frit m (plural frits)

1. (Jersey, continental) fruit

• gardîn à frit (“orchard”) (Jersey)

frit

1. second-person singular of fri

• friut

frit

1. Univerbation of fri +‎ do (“your sg”)