fry
verb · noun
Simple meaning
Cook on a hot surface using fat.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fryIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɹaɪ
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.
verb
Cook on a hot surface using fat
Be excessively hot
A method of cooking food.
To affect or be affected by extreme heat or current.
Kill by electrocution, as in the electric chair
transitiveinformal
To destroy (something, usually electronic), often with excessive heat, voltage, or current.
noun
A young person of either sex
Young fish; fishlings.
A drain, usually made of brushwood.
UK dialectal
The spawn of frogs.
A kind of sieve.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Cook on a hot surface using fat
Used this way, fry is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a food and cooking use: everyday in kitchens and recipes.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Cooking/food
- Everyday conversation
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A frying pan heated by electricity.
Usually cooked in a skillet over an open fire: especially cornbread with ham bits and sometimes Irish soda bread.
A cook who specializes in fried foods.
Cook by immersing in fat.
Fry in deep fat.
A pan used for frying foods.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: young person of either sex
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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.