frayed
part of speech
adjective (frayed); verb (past of «fray»: fray, frays, frayed, fraying)
meaning for a pupil
1) Frayed cloth or rope has loose threads at the edge because it is old or worn. tree →
2) Frayed nerves or tempers are worn out, so people get upset easily. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life jeans, shoelaces, ropes and old cables become frayed. In safety lessons, a frayed electric cable is dangerous — it can give a shock or start a fire — so tell an adult and stop using it; a frayed climbing rope must be replaced. In stories «tempers frayed» means people became cross and impatient. Phrases: «frayed edges», «frayed rope», «frayed nerves», «tempers frayed».
examples
- My jeans are frayed at the bottom. tree →
- Don't use that frayed cable — it's dangerous. tree →
- The old rope was badly frayed. tree →
- Her shoelace was frayed and finally snapped. tree →
- After hours of waiting, tempers frayed. tree →
- The flag had frayed in the wind. tree →
- The blanket's edges were frayed. tree →
- Frayed wires can start a fire. tree →
- The shirt-collar was rather frayed out at the edge, so the scissors came to cut off the threads. tree →
note
Base verb «fray» (frayed, fraying). Trap: «frayed» sounds like «afraid» without the a, but means worn, not scared. A «fray» (noun) can also mean a fight: «join the fray».
In the corpora
- A frayed or damaged cord should be unplugged by an adult and not used again until it is fixed.
- Never touch or use a frayed cable with wires showing; tell a grown-up.
- A cracked or frayed cable can give an electric shock.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «frayed» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.