Fringing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Creating a border or edge decoration often made of threads or small strips ; existing around or at the outer edge of an area or object
2. Producing an ornamental trimming made of short hanging material ; lying along or marking the outer boundary of a place
3. Making a fringe as a decorative finish ; positioned as a surrounding or marginal line that borders something

Etymology: The verb "fringing" is simply the form of "fringe" used for the ongoing action, and the noun it comes from has a surprising sound history. The Latin it descends from, "fimbriae", meant threads or fibres, the loose ends of cloth. Over time, Latin speakers in Gaul appear to have swapped the sounds in the word, producing a form like "frimbia", which passed into Old French as "frenge" and then into Middle English as "frenge". The rearrangement of its consonants is what gives the English word its shape. English already had several words for this decoration. Old English speakers used "fæs" and "fnæs", and Middle English added "fnæd", "byrd", and "fasel", but the French borrowing displaced all of them. "Fringe" and "fimbria" are therefore doublets, two words from the same Latin source that entered English by different routes, and the Latin form survives mainly in technical use for the fringe-like edge of organs such as the Fallopian tube.

Synonyms: edging