Forms: 5–6 fracel, -le, frakel, -il, -le, 6 frekell(e, -le, -yll, 6–7 freck-(e)l, 7 frecle, -lle, 6– freckle. [Alteration of FRECKEN.]
1. A yellowish or light-brown spot in the skin, said to be produced by exposure to the sun and wind.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 189. Of clooþ þat is clepid fraclis or goute roset.
1544. Phaer, Regim. Lyfe (1553), B v a. Lac virginis … taketh awaie frekles of ye visage.
1612. Woodall, The Surgeons Mate, Wks. (1653), 163. The legs and thighes discoloured into frekels.
1700. Dryden, Palamon & Arcite, III. 76.
| Some sprinkled Freckles on his Face were seen, | |
| Whose dusk set off the Whiteness of the Skin. |
1775. Sheridan, Duenna, II. ii. Jerome. Her skin pure dimity, yet more fair, being spangled here and there with a golden freckle.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. Fleet, I. 4–5. As for her complexion, it was as good as can be expected in a girl whose blood is pure, who has, as yet, known no late hours, who has been taught to use plenty of cold water and no washes or messes, who has run about without thinking of freckles, and has lived in the open air on homely food.
fig. a. 1535. More, Wks., 7. So farre was he from the geuyng of any diligence to erthly thinges, that he semed somwhat besprent wt the frekell of negligence.
2. Any small spot or discoloration.
1547. Boorde, Introd. Knowl., i. (1870), 127. If a man doth cast a cupe, a staffe, or a napkyn, in the well, it wyll be full of droppes or frakils, and redyshe like bloude.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., II. i. 13.
| In their [Cowslips’] gold coats, spots you see, | |
| Those be Rubies, Fairie fauors, | |
| In those freckles, liue their sauors. |
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., 3. One would take them at first but for little reddish Frecles and Spots.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 241.
| Not a flow’r | |
| But shows some touch in freckle, streak or stain, | |
| Of his unrivall’d pencil. |
1813. T. Forster, Atmosph. Phaenom. (1815), 78. A cloud composed sometimes of little cirrocumulous nubeculae, and sometimes of those of a sort of cirrostratus like little freckles.
1832. Bowles, St. John in Patmos, v. 55.
| Each stray cloud | |
| Wandererd far off, and lost in the blue sky, | |
| And not a freckle stained the firmament | |
| High overhead. |
transf. 18[?]. O. W. Holmes, Good Time Going.
| His home!—the Western giant smiles, | |
| And twirls the spotty globe to find it,— | |
| This little speck the British Isles? | |
| ’T is but a freckle,—never mind it! |
† 3. ? A wrinkle. Obs.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 169 b. They fille vp theyr frekyllys: and stretche abrode theyr skyn with tetanother.
4. Comb., as freckle-water; freckle-faced adj.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2380/4. Charles Vine … freckle Fac’d … Run away from his Master.
1856. Anne Manning, Tasso & Leonora, 100. I am off to the Barber-surgeon’s to buy some Freckle-water for Madama Leonora.
1884. Harper’s Mag., LXVIII. Jan., 306/2. If you were freckle-faced and cross-eyed, being a princess, you could sell button-hole bouquets at a guinea apiece.
