Frounce

//fɹaʊns// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A canker in the mouth of a hawk.

    "The hawke had no lyst To come to his fyst; She loked as she had the frounce; […]"

  2. 2
    A plait or curl.
Verb
  1. 1
    To curl. ambitransitive, rare

    "Beard untrimmed by barber's shears, Hair all frouncing 'bout his ears,"

  2. 2
    To crease, wrinkle, to frown. rare

    "He frounced his brow, and from his scornful eye Shot wrath indignant, and disdain and pride,"

  3. 3
    To gather into or adorn with plaits, as a dress.

Synonyms

All synonyms
cankercankerrouproup

Example

More examples

"The hawke had no lyst To come to his fyst; She loked as she had the frounce; […]"

Etymology

From Middle English frouncen, from Old French froncir "to wrinkle, frown", from Frankish *hrunkiju (“a wrinkle”), from Proto-Germanic *hrunkijō, *hrunkitō (“fold, wrinkle”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Akin to Old High German runza "fold, wrinkle, crease" (German Runzel "wrinkle"), Middle Dutch ronse "frown", Old Norse hrukka "wrinkle, crease" (Icelandic hrukka "wrinkle, crease, ruck"). More at ruck₂.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.