fress

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See also: frëss

English

Etymology

From German fressen (to eat, devour, gobble) and/or Yiddish פֿרעסן (fresn), both from Middle High German vrezzen, from Old High German frezzan (to eat up), from Proto-West Germanic *fraetan, from Proto-Germanic *fraetaną (to eat up), from *fra- (intensive and perfective prefix) + *etaną (to eat), equivalent to for- +‎ eat. Cognate with Old English fretan (to devour). Doublet of fret.

Pronunciation

Verb

fress (third-person singular simple present fresses, present participle fressing, simple past and past participle fressed)

  1. (obsolete outside dialects, e.g. Lunenburg, Nova Scotia) to eat without restraint; eat heartily
    Synonym: pig out

Further reading

  • Lewis Poteet (2004) “along the South Shore, especially in the Shelburne area fress—eat”, in South Shore Phrase Book, iUniverse, →ISBN
  • Bill Casselman (1995) Casselman's Canadian Words: A Comic Browse Through Words and Folk Sayings Invented by Canadians:FRESS To eat like an animal is to fress, a verb common in the area around Lunenburg , Nova Scotia. German immigrants introduced this word, from the German fressen 'to devour, to be gluttonous.' Originally the verb was an intensive form  []
  • 2012, H.L. Mencken, American Language Supplement 2, Knopf, →ISBN:
    The dialect of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, which was settled by Germans in the Eighteenth Century, has been studied [] apple-snits (Ger. schnitte); lapish, insipid (Ger. láppisch); klotsy, heavy or soggy (Ger. klotzig); to fress, to eat greedily; [] shimmel, a very blond person (Ger. schimmel, a white mould), and Fassnakday, Shroove Tuesday (Ger. Fastnacht).

Anagrams

German

Verb

fress

  1. (colloquial) first-person singular present of fressen
    Synonym: (standard) fresse
  2. (colloquial) singular imperative of fressen
    Synonym: (standard) friss

Icelandic

Pronunciation

Noun

fress n (genitive singular fress, nominative plural fress) or
fress m (genitive singular fress, nominative plural fressar)

  1. tomcat

Declension