English

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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frab (third-person singular simple present frabs, present participle frabbing, simple past and past participle frabbed)

  1. (UK, dialect, archaic) To scold, nag, or harass.
    • 1827, Lee Gibbons, Owain Goch:
      Dunna think we'll sit siking and frabbing, because hur's took up with that dainty doll
    • 1848, [Elizabeth Gaskell], Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life. [] (Chapman and Hall’s Series of Original Works of Fiction, Biography, and General Literature), volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, [], →OCLC:
      "I did not make him as happy as I might ha' done," murmured she, in a low, sad voice of self-reproach. "Th' accident gave a jar to my temper it's never got the better of; and now he's gone where he can never know how I grieve for having frabbed him as I did."
    • 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. [], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., [], published 1866, →OCLC:
      Oh! I can nearly say it all off by heart, for many a time when I am frabbed by bad debts, or Osborne's bills, or moidered with accounts, I turn the ledger wrong way up, and smoke a pipe over it, while I read those pieces out of the review which speak about you, lad!'

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