fritter

Inherited from Middle English fryture, from Middle French friture, from Old French friture, from Late Latin *frīctūra, from Latin frīgō (“to fry”); compare fry.

For the development of Middle English /iu̯r(ə)/ into /ə(ɹ)/, compare armour, batter, border, solder.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɪtə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) enPR: frĭtʹər, IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɪtɚ/, [ˈfɹɪɾɚ]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪtə(ɹ)

fritter (plural fritters)

1. A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter.
2. A fragment; a shred; a small piece.
   • 1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:

     And cut whole giants into fritters.

fritter (third-person singular simple present fritters, present participle frittering, simple past and past participle frittered)

1. (intransitive, often with about, around, or away) To squander or waste time, money, or other resources; e.g. occupy oneself idly or without clear purpose, to tinker with an unimportant part of a project, to dally, sometimes as a form of procrastination.

   I was supposed to do work, but I frittered around all afternoon.

   He can’t figure out how to finish the paper he’s writing, so he’s resorted to frittering with the fonts.

   It is quite possible to fritter one's life away in answer to the endless calls of others.

2. (transitive) To sinter.
3. (transitive) To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying.
4. (transitive) To break into small pieces or fragments.
   • 1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin, London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC:

     Break all nerves, and fritter all their sense.

• tempura

• IPA^(key): /fʁi.te/

• Audio

  (file)

fritter

1. (transitive) to fritter / sinter

• “fritter”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.