noun
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decorative geometrical carving or openwork
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any similar pattern of light and dark
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ornamental work of three-dimensional frets
Etymology
Origin of fretwork
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Moving on to the guest room, Bauer points to a Fretwork wood wall panel above the daybed.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 20, 2025
MacMillan — like Byrd, a committed Catholic — recently wrote “Ye Sacred Muses” for the King’s Singers and Fretwork, the viol consort.
From New York Times • Jul. 4, 2023
On Wednesday night at the Library of Congress, music both old and new were featured on an alluring program by Fretwork and British countertenor Iestyn Davies.
From Washington Post • Oct. 17, 2019
Entitled My Days, it sets Psalm 39 together with a particularly descriptive section from Gibbons' autopsy, and proved entirely worthy of the Hilliards and Fretwork, for whom it was composed.
From The Guardian • Oct. 4, 2012
Fretwork is very rarely seen, but the carved ornament is generally a foliated or curled endive scroll; sometimes the top of a cabinet is finished in the form of a Chinese pagoda.
From Illustrated History of Furniture From the Earliest to the Present Time by Litchfield, Frederick
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
