English

Noun

frill ‎(plural frills)

1. A strip of pleated material used as decoration or trim; a ruffle.
2. (photography) A wrinkled edge to a film.
3. A luxury.
4. Something extraneous added for effect.
   • 1977, Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, Part II, chapter4:

     Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […]  Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.

Translations

See also

• jabot

Verb

frill ‎(third-person singular simple present frills, present participle frilling, simple past and past participle frilled)

1. (transitive) To make into a frill.
2. (intransitive) To become wrinkled.
3. (transitive) To provide or decorate with a frill or frills; to turn back in crimped plaits.
   • Charles Dickens, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings

     Mrs. Sandham, formerly Kate Barford, is working at a baby's frock, and asking now and then the advice of her sister, who is frilling a little cap.

4. (intransitive, obsolete) To shake or shiver as with cold.

   The hawk frills.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

Translations

Derived terms

• frilly
• no frills
• turkey frills