FRILL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Frill

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/frɪl/ Listen

noun

Frill n. (Zool.)

(a)

A ruffing of a bird's feathers from cold.

(b)

A ruffle, consisting of a fold of membrane, of hairs, or of feathers, around the neck of an animal. See Frilled lizard (below).

(c)

A similar ruffle around the legs or other appendages of animals.

(d)

A ruffled varex or fold on certain shells.

A border or edging secured at one edge and left free at the other, usually fluted or crimped like a very narrow flounce.

Hence: Something superfluous, such as an ornament, or an additional function on a device or in a system not essential to the basic operation. Commonly used in the phrase no frills, used adjectively to indicate a fully functional but economical device or service; as, an economical no-frills airline.

verb

Frill v. t. To provide or decorate with a frill or frills; to turn back. in crimped plaits; as, to frill a cap.

frill v. i. (past & past part. frilled; pres. part. frilling)

To shake or shiver as with cold; as, the hawk frills.

(Photog.) To wrinkle; said of the gelatin film.

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Etymology of 'Frill'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Frill" Quotes from Famous Books

... gave the Creation. She sang the solo parts and I never have forgotten her or her singing. She was gowned in a stylish robe of some soft clinging wine-colored material and her blonde hair was done up in a soft coil on the crown of her head. At her throat was a soft frill of lace, becomingly arranged and finishing the picture, leaving a lasting impression, which was still more strengthened by her beautiful singing, for which she received the most hearty reception. Her voice was exceedingly high ...

— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... almost hot, surprising for the season, and she was dressed in conformity in some kind of thin stuff with little dots of black. Her round young arms were bare to the elbow, and there was a narrow lacy frill about her neck. It was too warm really to need a hat or jacket, and this place was informal enough, she thought, to do away with gloves. Having rapidly decided that it was also a pity to cool resolution by returning to the house for any ...

— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... the air, instead of that horrible muggy heat that made us feel so languid when we were in the Red Sea. Look over the ship's side and watch the rainbow in the spray; that is one of the prettiest things to see on board. As the vessel cuts through the water she raises a frill of foam on either side—what the sailors call "a bone in her mouth." The frill, rising to a continuous wave along the side, catches the sunlight and a perpetual rainbow dances in it, changing always but remaining ever. Whew! What a rush! Flying fish. Look ...

— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... red and utterly shapeless little face lay, like a crushed beet-root, in a mass of dainty laces almost voluminous enough to have dressed out a bride. As a sort of crowning satire, the face in particular was surrounded by a broad frill, spotted with bunches of pink satin ribbon, and farther encased in a white satin hood ...

— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... sufferer; and one Sunday afternoon she took her little boy Aaron with her, and went to call on Silas, carrying in her hand some small lard-cakes, flat paste-like articles much esteemed in Raveloe. Aaron, an apple-cheeked youngster of seven, with a clean starched frill which looked like a plate for the apples, needed all his adventurous curiosity to embolden him against the possibility that the big-eyed weaver might do him some bodily injury; and his dubiety was much increased when, on arriving at the Stone-pits, they heard the mysterious ...

— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

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