fritter
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A fragment; a shred.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
friterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɹɪtɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A fragment; a shred; a small piece.
A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter.
verb
transitive
To break into small pieces or fragments.
transitive
To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying.
intransitiveoften with aboutaroundor 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.
transitive
To sinter.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A fragment; a shred; a small piece.
Used this way, fritter is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.