orfray
English edit
Etymology edit
From French orfraie. Compare osprey, ossifrage.
Noun edit
orfray (plural orfrays)
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “orfray”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
Anagrams edit
Middle English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle French orfrais, orfreis, orfrois, and other forms, from Late Latin aurifrasium, aurifrisium, and other forms, from Latin aurum Phrygium (“gold embroidery”, literally “Phrygian gold”). In Middle English, the final -s was often reinterpreted as a plural ending.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
orfray (plural orfrays)
- Any elaborate embroidery, especially when made of gold thread.
- c. 1360s (date written), Geffray Chaucer [i.e., Geoffrey Chaucer], “The Romaunt of the Rose”, in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London: […] Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], published 1542, →OCLC, folio cxxxii, recto, column 2:
- Orfrayes freſhe, was her garlande / I whiche haue ſene a thouſande / Saw neuer ywys no garlande yet / So well wrought of ſylke as it
- Her garland was of fresh orphreys; / I, who have seen a thousand of them, / Have indeed never seen a garland / So well wrought of silk as it.
- A piece of fabric) adorned with such embroidery.
- Fine embroidered decoration, especially a border or fringe composed of such embroidery.
Descendants edit
References edit
- “orfrei, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-09-15.