Fringe sb.

Forms: 4–7 frenge, (5 freny(e, 6 Sc. frenȝe, 6–7 fryi(y)ng, frienge), (7 frindge), 6– fringe. [ME. frenge, a. OF. frenge (1316 in Douët d’Arcq, Comptes de l’ Arg, des Rois de France, 60), also (Walloon) fringe (mod.Fr. frange) = Pr. fremja, fermja:—popular L. *frimbia, metathetic alteration of class. Lat. fimbria border, fringe. The change of ME. (e) to mod. Eng. (i) before (ndȝ) is normal: cf. hinge, singe.]

  1.  An ornamental bordering, consisting of a narrow band to which are attached threads of silk, cotton, etc., either loose or formed into tassels, twists, etc. (Occas. spec. that worn by the Hebrews in accordance with the command in Num. xv. 38.)

c. 1340.  Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, 597.

1407.  Nottingham Rec., II. 52. Pro uno riben frenge de cirico, xvijd.

c. 1540.  Pilgr. Tale, 175, in Thynne’s Animadv. (1865), App. i. With a blak fryng hemyd al about.

1602.  Marston, Ant. & Mel., III. Wks. 1856, I. 39. The fringe of your sattin peticote is ript.

a. 1714.  M. Henry, Exp. Judges xix. 22. What did it avail them that they had … God’s Law in their Fringes, but the Devil in their Hearts.

1762–71.  H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), IV. 70. H. Vandermijn, another Dutch painter … faithfully imitating the details of lace, embroidery, fringes, and even the threads of stockings.

1861.  Miss Yonge, Stokesley Secret, ii. (1862), 42. Drab alpaca frocks, rather long and not very full; not a coloured bow nor handkerchief, not a flounce nor fringe, to relieve them.

  b.  collect. A manufactured article of this kind which may be cut into lengths.

1327.  Wardr. Acc. Edw. III., 33/2. 14 uln. frenge, serico nigro, per uln’, 3d.

1461–83.  Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV. (Nicolas), 117. For frenge of gold of Venys at vj s. the ounce.

1466.  Paston Lett., No. 549, II. 270. For grey lynen cloth and sylk frenge for the hers.

1589.  Nottingham Rec., IV. 226. For fustyan and fringe and workemanshippe in tryminge vpp of the townes pikes vjs jd.

1660.  Goostrey Churchw. Acc., in Earwaker, Sandbach (1890), 248. Pd. for cloth, silke, thread, and frinje, for a pulpit chussin 1 li.

1708.  J. Chamberlayne, The Present State of Great-Britain, I. III. iii. (1743), 168. An earl may also have a cloth of State without pendants, but only Fringe.

1814.  Jane Austen, Mansf. Park, II. i. 11. She had done a great deal of carpet work and made many yards of fringe.

1815.  Jane Taylor, Display, xiii. 167. Pray do you sell silk fringe?

  2.  Anything resembling this; a border or edging, esp. one that is broken or serrated.

1649.  Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., Pref. § 11. Little distances neere the centre make greater and larger figures, then when they part neere the fringes of the circle.

1649.  G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., cxc.

a. 1687.  Cotton, Song, Poems (1689), 353.

1711.  Addison, Spect., No. 85, 7 June, ¶ 1. A Friend of mine who, for these several Years, has converted the Essays of a Man of Quality into a kind of Fringe for his Candlesticks.

1720.  Gay, Poems (1745), II. 107.

1815.  Byron, Siege Cor., xvi.

1852.  Conybeare & H., St. Paul (1862), I. i. 8. Three of four centuries before the Christian era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not been permitted to advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek colonies.

1856.  Ld. Cockburn, Mem., i. (1874), 46. Sir Harry occasionally detected the dying man peeping cautiously through the fringes of his eyelids to see how his visitor was coming on.

1857.  Livingstone, Trav., v. 96. There is a rim or fringe of ancient rocks round a great central valley, which, dipping inwards, form a basin, the bottom of which is composed of the oldest silurian rocks.

1864.  C. Clarke, Box for Season, I. 95. His whiskers met in what is commonly known as a Newgate fringe.

1866.  Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 5. The handlooms made a far-reaching straggling fringe about the great centres of manufacture.

1871.  L. Stephen, Playgr. Europe, iii. (1894), 85. Below us was a broad fringe of snow ending in a bergschrund.

1890.  Boldrewood, Colonial Reform. (1891), 221. The Back Lake was a grand-looking sheet of fresh water, covered with wild fowl, a thin fringe of timber surrounding its margin.

  b.  fig. occas. in sense of an appendage or sequel; also (slang or colloq.), irrelevant matter.

1642.  [see FACING 4 b].

1651–3.  Jer. Taylor, Serm. for Year (1678), 357. Place the man in … the confines of Grace and the fringes of Repentance.

a. 1734.  North, Lives (1826), I. 322. There followed the horrid conspiracy, called the Rye plot, and, as fringes to these, other minor plots.

1874.  H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., i. § 5. 47. A fringe of Gentile forces and influences had surrounded the sacred institutions of Judaism.

1875.  Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Greatness, Wks. (Bohn), III. 272. Depth of intellect relieves even the ink of crime with a fringe of light.

1886.  Police Report. As to what had taken place in the park, he (the magistrate) considered it simple fringe, and he would not go into that.

  c.  A portion of the front hair brushed forward and cut short. Cf. BANG.

1883.  Mrs. Oliphant, A Lover & his Lass (ed. 2), III. iv. 84. Jean was not too old to indulge in hairdressing, in fringes and curls on her forehead had she so chosen, and indeed the wind would sometimes do as much for her as fashion did for others, finding out unexpected twists and fantasies in her brown locks.

1884.  Besant, Childr. Gibeon, I. v. The ‘fringe’ was never intended to darken and to disfigure the face.

1887.  Daily News, 2 May, 7/2. Wanted, at once, a young person … who understands house and parlour work…. No fringe.

  d.  In plants.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 217. The said root is full of strings or fringes, as is the head of an onion.

1796.  Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 2), III. 330. Splachnum … fringe with 8 teeth.

1846.  J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. 363. Calyx magnified, showing the fringes.

1856.  Capern, Poems (ed. 2), 136.

1862.  Darwin, Fertil. Orchids, v. 207. If these fringes are placentæ, they are more largely developed than in other Orchids.

1879.  Lubbock, Sci. Lect., i. 16–7. The pollen must therefore be brought by insects, and this is effected by small flies, which enter the leaf, either for the sake of honey or of shelter, and which, moreover, when they have once entered the tube, are imprisoned by the fringe of hairs.

  e.  In animals.

1665.  Hooke, Microgr., 174. The whole edge of the wing is cover’d with a small fringe, consisting of short and more slender brisles.

1811.  A. T. Thomson, Lond. Disp., II. (1818), 279. A black substance on the fringe or fin [of oysters].

1828.  Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 327. Elytra and wings sloping, triangular, and without fringes.

1841–71.  T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4), 107. If one of these Acalephs is carefully examined while swimming freely in its native element, it becomes evident that the supposed upper orifice is only a deep cavity the bottom of which is furnished with a delicate contractile arborescent fringe, in the centre of which is situated a little pyriform papilla, regarded as constituting an ocular apparatus.

1848.  W. B. Carpenter, Anim. Phys., 248. In Fishes, the gills are composed of fringes, which are disposed in rows on each side of the throat, and are covered by the skin.

  f.  Anat. = FIMBRIA.

1857.  Bullock, Cazeaux’ Midwif., 65. One of these fringes … attaches itself to the extremity of the ovary.

  g.  Optics. One of the colored spectra produced by diffraction: see DIFFRACTION 1.

1704.  Newton, Opticks, III. i. (1721), 293. These Shadows have three parallel Fringes, Bands or Ranks of colour’d Light adjacent to them.

1831.  Brewster, Optics, iv. 32. By turning the prism round, so as to render the incidence gradually more oblique, we shall see the faint light pass suddenly into a bright light, and separated from the faint light by a coloured fringe.

1837.  Goring & Pritchard, Microgr., 76. When I obtained the light of the prism … obliquely, the coloured fringes instantly appeared.

  3.  attrib. and Comb., as fringe-maker; fringe-making vbl. sb.; fringe-backed, -finned, -hung, -lipped adjs. Also fringe-flower = fringe-tree; fringe-gloves, fringed gloves, gloves ornamented with a fringe; fringe-loom (see quot.); fringe-moss, a name for various species of moss (see quot.); fringe-myrtle (see quot.); fringe-pod, a name given in California to Thysanocarpus laciniatus; fringe-tree, Chionanthus virginica.

1872.  Nicholson, Palæont., 321. This structure characterises a division of Ganoids called by Huxley, for this reason, Crossopterygidæ, or *‘fringe-finned.’

1882.  John Smith, Dict. Pop. Names Pl. *Fringe-Flower (Chionanthus virginica) a shrub … of the Olive family.

1589.  Acc.-bk. W. Wray, in Antiquary, XXXII. 55. A dosse’ *fringe gloves.

1670.  Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), II. 207–8. They presented him with a rich pair of fring-gloves and a dozen of white-kid.

1837.  Hood, Hero & Leander, lxxvi. Picture one … Who slowly parts the *fringe-hung canopies.

1836.  Yarnell, Brit. Fishes (1859), I. 19. The *Fringe-lipped Lampern.

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 917/2. *Fringe-loom. One in which the weft-thread is carried and detained beyond the limit of the warp, which has thus a series of loops beyond the selvage.

1679.  Bedloe, Narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid Popish Plot, 11. Indentures of Covenant for him and another to serve one … French-*fring-maker for 10l per Anuum wages.

1712.  Steele, Spect., No. 478, ¶ 2. Fringe-makers, lace-men.

1713.  Lond. Gaz., No. 5086/4. The Employment … of *Fringmaking.

1818.  Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 6), III. 1058. Toothed Hoary *Fringe-Moss, Bryum hypnoides.

1868.  Tripp, Brit. Mosses, 124. Ptychomitrium polyphyllum, Many-leaved Fringe Moss.

1866.  Treas. Bot., *Fringe-Myrtles. A name given by Lindley to the Chamælauciaceæ.

1775.  A. Burnaby, Trav., 14. The woods … are likewise adorned and beautified with … *fringe trees, flowering poplars, etc.

1863.  S. L. J., Life in South, I. vi. 85. The fringe-tree.

  Hence Fringeless a., having no fringe; Fringelet, a small fringe.

1837.  Cooper, Recollect. Europe, II. 78. The present cropped and fringeless, bewhiskered and laceless generation of France.

1868.  Tripp, Brit. Mosses, 71. Anodus Donianus … Fringeless Bristle Moss.

1887.  Pop. Sci. Monthly, XXXI. 747. Each fringelet is a tube made of firm elastic membrane.