different between fringe vs furbelow

English

Etymology

From Middle English frenge, from Old French frenge, from Vulgar Latin *frimbia, metathesis of Latin fimbriae (“fibers, threads, fringe”, plural). (Cognates include German Franse and Danish frynse.) Doublet of fimbria.

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /f??nd?/
• Rhymes: -?nd?

Noun

fringe (plural fringes)

1. A decorative border.

   the fringe of a picture

2. A marginal or peripheral part.
   • 1673, Jeremy Taylor, Heniaytos: A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays of the Year […]

     the confines of grace and the fringes of repentance
3. Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views.
4. The periphery of a town or city (or other area).
5. (Britain) Synonym of bangs: hair hanging over the forehead, especially a hairstyle where it is cut straight across.

   Her fringe is so long it covers her eyes.

   • 1915, W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

     In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared. She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an elaborate fringe.

   • “No.” Astrid?s tone dismissed Sophie and the fringe as she galloped off to a new topic.

   • 2009, Geraldine Biddle-Perry, Sarah Cheang, Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, page 231,

     Set against the seductive visual and textual imagery of these soft-focus fantasy worlds, the stock list details offer the reader a very real solution to achieving the look themselves, ‘Hair, including coloured fringes (obtainable from Joseph, £3.50) by Paul Nix’ (Baker 1972a: 68).

6. (physics) A light or dark band formed by the diffraction of light.

   interference fringe

7. Non-mainstream theatre.

   The Fringe; Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe

8. (botany) The peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.
9. (golf) The area around the green
10. (Australia) Used attributively with reference to Aboriginal people living on the edge of towns etc.
    • 2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo 2012, p. 20:

      All the fringe people thought it was such a good house, ingenious in fact, and erected similar makeshift housing for themselves.

11. (television, radio) A daypart that precedes or follows prime time.

Synonyms

• (members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views): fringe group
• (periphery of a town or city): outskirts

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

fringe (not comparable)

1. Outside the mainstream.

Synonyms

• alternative
• nonmainstream

Translations

Verb

fringe (third-person singular simple present fringes, present participle fringing, simple past and past participle fringed)

1. (transitive) To decorate with fringe.
2. (transitive) To serve as a fringe.

Translations

Anagrams

• Finger, finger

English

Etymology

Corruption of falbala; first attested in the late 1600s or early 1700s. Not related to fur.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?f??.b?.l??/, /?f??.b?.l??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?f?.b?.lo?/, /?f?.b?.lo?/

Noun

furbelow (plural furbelows)

1. A frill, flounce, or ruffle, as on clothing; a decorative piece of fabric, especially one gathered or pleated as into a ruffle, etc.
   • 1863, John George Wood, The Illustrated Natural History, page 745,

     All the other furbelows, and portions of this one^{[this Medusa]} that lay below the expansion, floated as usual through the water, except that on some occasions an accessory power was obtained by pressing a portion of another furbelow to the side of the glass and making it adhere just like the portion that was exposed to the surface of the air.

   • 1964, E. J. H. Corner, The Life of Plants, 2002, University of Chicago Press, page 76,

     Each plant has several oarweed fronds on the top of a flat stem, well adapted to swaying in one direction but rigid in the other; along the rigid edges, where the water flows and eddies, develop the wavy furbelows.

2. A small, showy ornamentation.

Translations

Verb

furbelow (third-person singular simple present furbelows, present participle furbelowing, simple past and past participle furbelowed)

1. (transitive) To adorn with a furbelow; to ornament.

Related terms

• befurbelowed