fry
/fɹaɪ/ verb, noun, proper noun
Also a form of fries
- verb (transitive) To cook (something) in hot fat. “I am frying the eggs.”
- verb (intransitive) To cook in hot fat. “The eggs are frying.”
- verb (obsolete) To simmer; to boil.
- verb (intransitive, colloquial) To suffer because of too much heat. “You'll fry if you go out in this sun with no sunblock on.”
- verb (chiefly US, ambitransitive, slang) To execute, or be executed, by the electric chair. “He's guilty of murder: he's going to fry.”
- verb (transitive, informal) To destroy (something, usually electronic), often with excessive heat, voltage, or current. “If you apply that much voltage, you'll fry the resistor.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To entertain (a person) greatly; to make to laugh thoroughly. “This joke is absolutely frying me.”
- noun (usually in the plural, fries, chiefly Canada and US, cooking) A long, thin fried piece of cut potato.
- noun (by extension, usually in the plural) A long, thin fried piece of other foods. “halloumi fries”
- noun (Ireland, UK, cooking) A meal of fried sausages, bacon, eggs, etc.
- noun (Australia, New Zealand, cooking) The liver of a lamb.
- noun (usually in the plural, fries, US, cooking) A lamb or calf testicle.
- noun (colloquial, archaic) A state of excitement. “to be in a fry”
- noun Young fish; fishlings.
- noun (now chiefly UK dialectal) Offspring; progeny; children; brood.
- noun (archaic) A swarm, especially of something small. “a fry of children”
- noun (UK dialectal) The spawn of frogs.
- noun A kind of sieve.
- noun A drain, usually made of brushwood.
- verb (transitive, dialectal) To make a brushwood drain.
Synonyms
chip French fry fry-up liver prairie oyster Rocky Mountain oyster tendergroin Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry Christopher Fry child kid youngster minor shaver nipper small fry tiddler tike tyke nestling electrocute
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English fryen, borrowed from Old French frire, from Latin frīgō. Cognate with Ancient Greek φρύγω (phrúgō, “to roast, bake”), Sanskrit भृज्जति (bhṛjjati, “to roast, grill, fry”). Replaced native Middle English hirsten, from Old English hierstan (“to fry”). Related to bhurji, bhujia (“fried Indian snacks”).
From Middle English frie (“spawn of fish, young or small fish, offspring, progeny, children”), probably from Old Norse frjó (“seed, semen”), from Proto-Germanic *fraiwą (“seed, semen, offspring”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)per-, *(s)prey- (“to strew, sow”). Cognate with Icelandic frjó (“pollen, seed”), Icelandic fræ (“seed”), Swedish frö (“seed, embryo, grain, germ”), Danish and Norwegian frø (“seed”), Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌹𐍅 (fraiw, “seed”). Likely merging with Old French froiz, froie (“spawn, spawning”), from froier, freier (“to spawn”), from Latin fricō (“to rub”). Compare friable.
Dialectal, of obscure origin. Perhaps related to or a corruption of frith (“a wood, forest", also "brushwood, wattle”), from Middle English fryth, frith (“forest, woodland, a fence of brush or wattle, hedge”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To cook in a pan or on a griddle (esp. with the use of fat, butter, or olive oil) by heating over a fire; to cook in boiling lard or fat; as, to fry fish; to fry doughnuts.
- verb To undergo the process of frying; to be subject to the action of heat in a frying pan, or on a griddle, or in a kettle of hot fat.
- verb To simmer; to boil. [Obs.]
- noun A dish of anything fried.
Etymology [OE. frien, F. frire, fr. L. frigere to roast, parch, fry, cf. Gr. bhrajj. Cf. Fritter.]
Etymology [OE. fri, fry, seed, descendants, cf. OF. froye spawning, spawn of. fishes, little fishes, fr. L. fricare tosub (see Friction), but cf. also Icel. fræ, frjo, seed, Sw. & Dan. frö, Goth. fraiw seed, descendants.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “fry”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details