refret

English

Etymology 1

re- +‎ fret

Verb

refret (third-person singular simple present refrets, present participle refretting, simple past and past participle refretted)

1. (transitive) To replace the frets on (a musical instrument).

   Can you refret my guitar?

Etymology 2

From Middle English refreit, from Anglo-Norman refreit (“response”), refraindre (“to sing a refrain”); also Old French refreit (“refrain”). The Oxford English Dictionary suggests influence from an unattested Late Latin form, refrangere; compare Latin refractus (past participle). See refrain (noun), refract.

Alternative forms

• refrette, refreite, refrayt, refraid, refrayde, refreyd

Noun

refret (plural refrets)

1. (obsolete) A refrain.
   • 1820, Samuel Weller Singer, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet Prince of Denmark‎^[1], page 136:

     Our old English term refrette, ‘the foote of the dittie, a verse often interlaced, or the burden of a song,’ was probably from refrain; or from refresteler, to pipe over again. […] ‘Refrain, the refret, burthen, or downe of a ballad.’ All this discussion is rendered necessary, because Steevens unfortunately forgot to note from whence he made the following extract,

   • 1847, E.W. Hengstenberg, translated by J.E. Ryland, Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch‎^[2], volume 1, page 143:

     The refret or burden of the song in ver. 6, 8, 9, 10, “Yet have ye not returned to me,” […] alludes to Deut. iv. 29(30),

References

• “refret”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “refraid, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2009.

Anagrams

• ferret