[See FRILL sb.1]
1. trans. To furnish or decorate with a frill. (In the first quot. the meaning may be ‘to curl the hair’; cf. sense 2 and FRILL sb.1, quot. 1591.)
1574. Hellowes, Gueuara’s Fam. Ep., 296. The goode townselike craftsman, needes no daughter in lawe that can fril and paint her selfe [que sepan affeytar].
1766. Smollett, Trav., I. vii. 105. When I see one of those fine creatures sailing along, in her taudry robes of silk and gauze, frilled, and flounced, and furbelowed.
1834. Sir F. B. Head, Bubbles fr. Brunnen, 114. Next came a row of women in caps, frilled and bedizened.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 53. A dainty work-basket frilled with blue satin.
absol. 1766. Goldsm., Vic. W., xi. They [my two girls] can pink, point, and frill, and know something of music.
b. To serve as a frill for.
1886. Fenn, The Master of the Ceremonies, I. iii. A few strands of white hair had escaped from beneath the great mob of lace that frilled her night-cap, and hung over forehead and cheek, which were lined and wrinkled like a walnut shell, only ten times as deeply.
† 2. To furl up; to twist back. Obs. rare.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 516. His long mustachoes on his vpper lip, like bristles, frild back to his neck … did so expresse his martiall disposition … that [etc.]. Ibid., 1256. To depart whither they would, with their ensignes frilled vp, and fire in their matches. Ibid., 1288. Ensignes … frilled vp.
3. Photography. a. trans. (causatively.) To raise (a film) in flutes like a frill. b. intr. Of the film: To rise in flutes like a frill.
1891. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., IV. 57. ‘I didn’t mind the heat so much for myself,’ said this enthusiast, ‘but when the thermometer ran much above a hundred—well, the drops of perspiration would sometimes splash on a plate, you know, and sort of frill the film. Alum was not a bit of use to me when that happened.’
