frame

From Middle English framen, fremen, fremmen (“to construct, build, strengthen, refresh, perform, execute, profit, avail”), from Old English framian, fremian, fremman (“to profit, avail, advance, perform, promote, execute, commit, do”), from Proto-Germanic *framjaną (“to perform, promote”), from Proto-Indo-European *promo- (“front, forward”). Cognate with Low German framen (“to commit, effect”), Danish fremme (“to promote, further, perform”), Swedish främja (“to promote, encourage, foster”), Icelandic fremja (“to commit”). More at from.

• IPA^(key): /fɹeɪm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪm

frame (third-person singular simple present frames, present participle framing, simple past and past participle framed)

1. (transitive) To fit, as for a specific end or purpose; make suitable or comfortable; adapt; adjust.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Lyly

     I will hereafter frame myself to be coy.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     frame my face to all occasions

   • (Can we date this quote?) Landor

     We may in some measure frame our minds for the reception of happiness.

   • (Can we date this quote?) I. Taylor

     The human mind is framed to be influenced.

2. (transitive) To construct by fitting or uniting together various parts; fabricate by union of constituent parts.
3. (transitive) To bring or put into form or order; adjust the parts or elements of; compose; contrive; plan; devise.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Philip Sidney

     He began to frame the loveliest countenance he could.

   • (Can we date this quote?) I. Watts

     How many excellent reasonings are framed in the mind of a man of wisdom and study in a length of years.

4. (transitive) Of a constructed object such as a building, to put together the structural elements.

   Once we finish framing the house, we'll hang tin on the roof.

5. (transitive) Of a picture such as a painting or photograph, to place inside a decorative border.
6. (transitive) To position visually within a fixed boundary.

   The director frames the fishing scene very well.

7. (transitive) To construct in words so as to establish a context for understanding or interpretation.

   How would you frame your accomplishments?

   The way the opposition has framed the argument makes it hard for us to win.

   • 2016 February 20, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist:

     As for America’s constitution, speaking as the court’s originalist-in-chief, all that mattered was what its words meant when it was framed.

8. (transitive, criminology) Conspire to incriminate falsely a presumably innocent person.

   The gun had obviously been placed in her car in an effort to frame her.

9. (intransitive, dialectal, mining) To wash ore with the aid of a frame.
10. (intransitive, dialectal) To move.
    • (Can we date this quote?) E. Brontë

      An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not frame off, rewarded my perseverance.

11. (intransitive, obsolete) To proceed; to go.
    • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

      The beauty of this sinful dame / Made many princes thither frame.

12. (tennis) To hit (the ball) with the frame of the racquet rather than the strings (normally a mishit).
13. (transitive, obsolete) To strengthen; refresh; support.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Spenser

      At last, with creeping crooked pace forth came / An old, old man, with beard as white as snow, / That on a staffe his feeble steps did frame.

14. (transitive, obsolete) To execute; perform.

    All have sworn him an oath that they should frame his will on earth.

    • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

      The silken tackle / Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands / That yarely frame the office.

15. (transitive, obsolete) To cause; to bring about; to produce.
    • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

      Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds.

16. (intransitive, obsolete) To profit; avail.
17. (intransitive, obsolete) To fit; accord.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Tyndale

      When thou hast turned them all ways, and done thy best to hew them and to make them frame, thou must be fain to cast them out.

18. (intransitive, obsolete) To succeed in doing or trying to do something; manage.

• (conspire to incriminate): fit up

• → Dutch: frame
• → German: framen

A picture frame.

A bicycle frame (diamond frame).

frame (plural frames)

1. The structural elements of a building or other constructed object.

   Now that the frame is complete, we can start on the walls.

2. Anything composed of parts fitted and united together; a fabric; a structure.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, / Almighty! thine this universal frame.

3. The structure of a person's body.

   His starved flesh hung loosely on his once imposing frame.

   • 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XXXIV:

     There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met / To view the last of me, a living frame / For one more picture! […]

4. A rigid, generally rectangular mounting for paper, canvas or other flexible material.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 10, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

   The painting was housed in a beautifully carved frame.

5. A piece of photographic film containing an image.
   • 12 July 2012, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift

     Jokes are recycled so frequently, it’s as if comedy writing was eating a hole in the ozone layer: If the audience had a nickel for every time a character on one side of the frame says something could never happen as it simultaneously happens on the other side of the frame, they’d have enough to pay the surcharge for the movie’s badly implemented 3-D.

   A film projector shows many frames in a single second.

6. A context for understanding or interpretation.

   In this frame, it's easy to ask the question that the investigators missed.

7. (snooker) A complete game of snooker, from break-off until all the balls (or as many as necessary to win) have been potted.
8. (networking) An independent chunk of data sent over a network.
9. (bowling) A set of balls whose results are added together for scoring purposes. Usually two balls, but only one ball in the case of a strike, and three balls in the case of a strike or a spare in the last frame of a game.
10. (horticulture) A movable structure used for the cultivation or the sheltering of plants.

    a forcing-frame; a cucumber frame

11. (philately) The outer decorated portion of a stamp's image, often repeated on several issues although the inner picture may change.
12. (philately) The outer circle of a cancellation mark.
13. (film, animation, video games) A division of time on a multimedia timeline, such as 1/30th or 1/60th of a second.
14. (Internet) An individually scrollable region of a webpage.
15. (baseball, slang) An inning.
16. (engineering, dated, chiefly Britain) Any of certain machines built upon or within framework.

    a stocking frame; a lace frame; a spinning frame

17. (dated) frame of mind; disposition

    to be always in a happy frame

18. (obsolete) Contrivance; the act of devising or scheming.
    • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

      John the bastard / Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.

19. (dated, video games) A stage or level of a video game.
    • 1982, Gilsoft International, Mongoose (video game instructions)

      When you play the game it will draw a set pattern depending on the frame you are on, with random additions to the pattern, to give a different orchard each time.

20. (genetics, "reading frame") A way of dividing nucleotide sequences into a set of consecutive triplets.
21. (computing) A form of knowledge representation in artificial intelligence.
22. (mathematics) A complete lattice in which meets distribute over arbitrary joins.

• 1696, William Stephens, An Account of the Growth of Deism in England, page 17:

  ...It regulates and governs the Passions of the Mind, and brings them into due moderation and frame...

• fream

Borrowed from English frame.

• Audio

  (file)

frame n (plural frames, diminutive framepje n)

1. (snooker) frame
2. (construction) frame

• afrem, farme, rem af

frame

1. First-person singular present of framen.
2. First-person singular subjunctive I of framen.
3. Third-person singular subjunctive I of framen.
4. Imperative singular of framen.

Borrowed from English frame.

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹejm/, /ˈfɾejm/, /ˈfɾej.mi/

frame m (plural frames)

1. (networking) frame (independent chunk of data)
2. (Internet) frame (individually scrollable region of a webpage)
3. frame (individual image emitted by a projector or monitor)