frost

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   damage by frost

   The icy precipitation frosted the flowers and they turned brown

2. 2
   verb

   cover with frost

   ice crystals frosted the glass

3. 3
   verb

   provide with a rough or speckled surface or appearance

   frost the glass

4. 4
   verb

   decorate with frosting

   frost a cake

5. 5
   noun

   The cold weather that causes these ice crystals to form.

   Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes.

6. 6
   noun

   Coldness or insensibility; severity or rigidity of character.

   It was one of those moments of intense feeling when the frost of the Scottish people melts like a snow-wreath.

7. 7
   noun

   A kind of light diffuser.

   Frosts and diffusion are flame retardant and produce similar results except that some of the frosts are very subtle in their effects. For example: Hamburg Frost will soften the beam edge with little additional spread of the beam.

8. 8
   verb

   To become covered with frost.

   “The weather is pleasant while it frosted a little at night.”

Etymology

From Middle English frost, from an unmetathesized variant of Old English forst (“frost”), from Proto-Germanic *frustaz (“frost”), from Proto-Indo-European *prews- (“to freeze; frost”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Froast, Fröäst (“frost”), West Frisian froast (“frost”), Cimbrian bròst, vrost, vròst (“frost”), Dutch vorst (“frost”), German Frost (“frost”), Luxembourgish Frascht (“frost”), Vilamovian fröst (“frost”), Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Swedish frost (“frost”), Latin pruīna (“hoarfrost, frost, rime, snow”). Related to freeze.