frieze

Pluralfriezes

Formsfriezes, friezing, friezed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Any band of sculpture or rich decoration running along part of a building or an elaborate piece of furniture.

   Workers restored the carved frieze that wraps around the museum's main hall.

   A gilded frieze decorated the upper edge of the grand wardrobe.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   The part of a classical entablature between the architrave and cornice, a flat band sometimes broken by triglyphs and often carved with figures and other ornaments.

   The temple's frieze, set between architrave and cornice, was carved with scenes of battle.

   Restorers cleaned the marble frieze that ran around the building above its columns.

   Note

   The band's name comes from French frise, which goes back to Italian and Medieval Latin forms of disputed origin. One candidate is Arabic ifrīz, "cornice"; another is Latin opus Phrygium, Phrygian embroidery. In the Doric order the band alternates triglyphs with metopes, panels that often carry relief. Ionic and Corinthian friezes usually run unbroken, which is how a carved procession can wrap around a whole temple.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A banner bearing a connected series of pictures.

   The teacher pinned up a frieze that told the whole story in pictures.

   A long frieze of hand-drawn scenes decorated the school hallway.

   Note

   The classroom version keeps the shape of the temple band, a horizontal run of images read in order, but it is made as a banner rather than carved in stone. Alphabet frieze is the familiar compound, a strip that shows an animal for each letter.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A coarse woolen cloth with a shaggy or tufted nap raised on one side.

   The old greatcoat was cut from heavy frieze, rough to the touch.

   Irish weavers once produced frieze for laborers' jackets.

   Note

   This cloth has its own ancestry, separate from the architectural band. It probably came through French frise from Medieval Latin Frisia, Frisian wool brought in on northern ships, or perhaps from French friser, "to curl." It was the cloth of plain people: Charles Sprague runs "from beggar's frieze to monarch's robe." It often stands before another noun, as in Conan Doyle's frieze jacket or Coleridge's "frieze-coated" February.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To raise a nap on cloth; to frizz it.

   Finishers frieze the heavy wool to raise its shaggy surface.

   The old mill no longer friezes its blankets, so they now come off the loom smooth on both sides.

   Similarfrizz

   Note

   The verb behind the cloth's tufted surface: wool that has been through the process is friezed, which is why the coarse woolen cloth is described as having a friezed nap. Its nearest everyday relative is frizz, and like frizz it takes a direct object. Finishers frieze the cloth, and the cloth is friezed.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To furnish a building or wall with a decorative band along its upper part.

   The architects chose to frieze the gallery with a band of marble reliefs.

   Workers frieze the chamber walls with painted scenes.

   Note

   Made straight from the noun, the verb belongs to the language of finishing a room. One friezes a gallery with reliefs or a chamber with painted scenes, and the result is a friezed wall. Its forms match the cloth-finishing verb letter for letter, so the object tells you which is meant: wool or a wall.

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