or FRIEZE, in architecture, a part of the entablature of columns, more usually written and pronounced freeze. See Freeze.

Freeze, in commerce, a kind of woollen cloth or stuff for winter wear, being frized or knapt on one side; whence, in all probability, it derives its name.

Of frizes, some are crossed, others not crossed: the former are chiefly of English manufacture, the latter of Irish.

FRIZING of CLOTH, a term in the woollen manufactory, applied to the forming of the nap of cloth or stuff into a number of little hard burrs or prominences, covering almost the whole ground thereof.

Some cloths are only frized on the back side, as black cloths; others on the right side, as coloured and mixed cloths, rateens, bays, friezes, &c.

Frizing may be performed two ways. One with the hand, that is, by means of two workmen, who conduct a kind of plank that serves for a frizing instrument. The other way is by a mill, worked either by water or a horse, or sometimes by men. This latter is esteemed the better way of frizing, by reason the motion being uniform and regular, the little knobs of the frizing are formed more equably and regularly. The structure of this useful machine is as follows:

The three principal parts are the frizer or crisper, the frizing table, and the drawer or beam. The two first are two equal planks or boards, each about 10 feet long and 15 inches broad; differing only in this, that the frizing-table is lined or covered with a kind of coarse woollen stuff, of a rough flury nap; and the frizer is incrustated with a kind of cement composed of glue, gum-arabic, and a yellow sand, with a little aqua-vitæ, or urine. The beam, or drawer, thus call- ed, because it draws the stuff from between the frizer and the frizing-table, is a wooden roller, befit all over with little, fine, short points or ends of wire, like those of cards used in carding of wool.

The disposition and use of the machine is thus. The table stands immovable, and bears or sustains the cloth to be frized, which is laid with that side uppermost on which the nap is to be raised; over the table is placed the frizer, at such a distance from it as to give room for the stuff to be passed between them; so that the frizer, having a very slow semicircular motion, meeting the long hairs or naps of the cloth, twists and rolls them into little knobs or burrs; while, at the same time, the drawer, which is continually turning, draws away the stuff from under the frizer, and winds it over its own points.

All that the workman has to do while the machine is a-going, is to stretch the stuff on the table as fast as the drawer takes it off, and from time to time to take off the stuff from the points of the drawer.

The design of having the frizing-table lined with stuff of a short, stiff, stubby nap, is that it may detain the cloth between the table and the frizer long enough for the grain to be formed, that the drawer may not take it away too readily, which must otherwise be the case, as it is not held by anything at the other end. It were unnecessary to say anything particular of the manner of frizing stuffs with the hand, it being the aim of the workmen to imitate, as near as they can with their wooden instrument, the slow, equable, and circular motion of the machine; it needs only be added, that their frizer is but about two feet long and one broad; and that to form the nap more easily, they moisten the surface of the stuff lightly, with water mingled with whites of eggs or honey.