fray [LME] The spelling fray represents two distinct words. The verb meaning ‘to unravel’ comes from Latin fricare ‘to rub’, found also in friction [M16th] and is first found in the sense of deer rubbing the velvet off their antlers [L16th], the modern sense being early 18th century. A person eager to fight might ‘plunge into the fray’ [ME]. This comes from the same root as the old legal term *affray, Old French afrayer ‘to disturb, startle’. Someone frazzled [E19th] with exhaustion might not be surprised to hear that the word is probably linked with fray meaning ‘to unravel’, one original meaning of this dialect word.