frosten

F4R1O1S1T1E1N1

verb

To make or become frosted

Scrabble 10

Meanings

verbfrosten (third-person singular simple present frostens, present participle frostening, simple past and past participle frostened)

present singular third person frostens · participle present frostening · participle past frostened · past frostened

  1. ambitransitiveTo make or become frosted

    The sky was cloudless; the foliage of the wood scarce tinged with purple and gold; the buckwheat in yonder fields frostened into snowy ripeness.

    1922, Shoemaker's Best Selections for Readings and Recitations
    2 more examples

    For myself, I can entertain no fears that it will be otherwise. Around me and before me are to be seen the wise, the good and the great of our Fraternity; the grave and reverend countenances of the age, whose half-century of skill and experience have polished the shafts and adorned the capitals of each upreared column in the long vista of the past; those of middle age, upon whom time has yet laid lightly its frostening fingers; and the youthful, the generous and the warm-hearted, fresh from the quarry, and the ashlar all imbued with one common purpose, to do good.

    1858, Albert Gallatin Mackey, The American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences

    Her appearance was extremely neat. Her dark brown hair laid neatly upon either side of a high fair brow — and Time had kindly refused to frosten one single thread of it.

    1866, Ned Buntline, The Beautiful Nun, page 114

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*prews-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*prustós
  3. Proto-Germanic*frustaz
  4. Proto-West Germanic*frost
  5. Old Englishfrost
  6. Middle Englishfrost
  7. Englishfrost
  8. Englishfrosten

From frost + -en.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

frosten. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/frosten

MLA

“frosten.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/frosten. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “frosten,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/frosten.

Source: frosten on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.