refret
nounEtymology From Middle English refreit, from Anglo-Norman refreit (“response”), refraindre (“to sing a refrain”); also Old French refreit (“refrain”). The Oxford English Dictionary suggests influence from an unattested Late Latin form, refrangere; compare Latin refractus (past participle). See refrain (noun), refract.
1
Obsolete A refrain.
- Our old English term refrette, ‘the foote of the dittie, a verse often interlaced, or the burden of a song,’ was probably from refrain; or from refresteler, to pipe over again. […] ‘Refrain, the refret, burthen, or downe of a ballad.’ All this discussion is rendered necessary, because Steevens unfortunately forgot to note from whence he made the following extract,1820, Samuel Weller Singer, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet Prince of Denmark, page 136:
- The refret or burden of the song in ver. 6, 8, 9, 10, “Yet have ye not returned to me,”[…] alludes to Deut. iv. 29(30),1847, E.W. Hengstenberg, translated by J.E. Ryland, Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch, volume 1, page 143: