Bible Dictionary
FRET, FRETTING
To fret means to become angry, agitated, resentful, or troubled. It can also mean to eat away or corrode, as with a spreading disease or damaged fabric.
Definition
Fret means to become angry, agitated, resentful, or troubled. It may also describe something being eaten away or consumed, especially by a spreading disease. The word can therefore refer either to inward anger and vexation or to physical deterioration.
Biblical Usage
Scripture uses fret for anger toward evildoers, self-inflicted agitation, provocation, and resentment against the Lord. It also describes a fretting disease affecting garments or other material, including the leprosy mentioned in Leviticus.
Historical Background
The English word reflects an older sense of eating or consuming. Revised English renderings sometimes use “fretful,” “raged,” or “vexation,” according to the context.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>(charah, ma'ar):</p><p>To "fret" is from for (prefix) and etan, "to eat," "to consume." The word is both transitive and intransitive in King James Version:</p><p>(1) transitive as translation of charah, "to burn," Hithpael, "to fret one's self," "to be angry" (Ps 37:1, "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers"; Ps 37:7,8; Pr 24:19); of qatsaph, "to be angry," etc. (Isa 8:21, "They shall fret themselves, and curse," etc.); of raghaz, to be moved" (with anger, etc.) (Eze 16:43, "Thou hast fretted me in all these things," the American Standard Revised Version "raged against me"). For Le 13:55, see under Fretting below.</p><p>(2) Intransitive, it is the translation of ra`am, "to rage," Hiphil, "to provoke to anger" (1Sa 1:6, "Her rival provoked her sore, to make her fret"); of za`aph, "to be sad," "to fret" (Pr 19:3, "His heart fretteth against Yahweh").</p><p>Fretting in the sense of eating away, consuming, is used of the leprosy, ma'ar, "to be sharp, bitter, painful" (Le 13:51,52; 14:44, "a fretting leprosy"; in Le 13:55 we have "it (is) fret inward" ("fret" past participle), as the translation of pehetheth from pahath, "to dig" (a pit), the word meaning "a depression," "a hollow or sunken spot in a garment affected by a kind of leprosy," the Revised Version (British and American) "it is a fret."</p><p>Revised Version has "fretful" for "angry" (Pr 21:19), margin "vexation."</p><p>W. L. Walker</p>