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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
fritter
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ apple fritters
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Oil foamed around the islands of fritters, heat escaped through their centers to the pimpled surface.
▪ These fritters are especially delicious with stewed prunes with orange juice as an accompaniment, if desired.
▪ They can also be prepared in eggy fritters.
▪ This is an updated version of the recipe for Passover fritters passed down in her family.
▪ Turn fritters constantly and cook for approximately 5 minutes.
▪ Using a fish slice, transfer the cooked fritters to paper towels to drain.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fritter

Fritter \Frit"ter\, n. [OR. fritour, friture, pancake, F. friture frying, a thing fried, from frire to fry. See Far, v. t.]

  1. A small quantity of batter, fried in boiling lard or in a frying pan. Fritters are of various kinds, named from the substance inclosed in the batter; as, apple fritters, clam fritters, oyster fritters.

  2. A fragment; a shred; a small piece.

    And cut whole giants into fritters.
    --Hudibras.

    Corn fritter. See under Corn.

Fritter

Fritter \Frit"ter\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Frittered; p. pr. & vb. n. Frittering.]

  1. To cut, as meat, into small pieces, for frying.

  2. To break into small pieces or fragments.

    Break all nerves, and fritter all their sense.
    --Pope.

    To fritter away, to diminish; to pare off; to reduce to nothing by taking away a little at a time; also, to waste piecemeal; as, to fritter away time, strength, credit, etc.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
fritter

"whittle away, waste bit by bit, spend on trifles," 1728, probably from noun fritter "fragment or shred" (though this is recorded later), perhaps an alteration of 16c. fitters "fragments or pieces," which is perhaps ultimately from Old French fraiture "a breaking," from Latin fractura [OED]. Or perhaps from a Germanic *fet-source (compare Middle High German vetze "clothes, rags," Old English fetel "girdle").

fritter

"fried batter cake," served hot and sometimes sweetened or seasoned or with other food in it, late 14c., from Old French friture "fritter, pancake, something fried" (12c.), from Late Latin frictura "a frying," from frigere "to roast, fry" (see fry (v.)).

Wiktionary
fritter

n. 1 A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter. 2 A fragment; a shred; a small piece. vb. 1 (context intransitive often with '''about''' or '''around''' English) To occupy oneself idly or without clear purpose, to tinker with an unimportant part of a project, to dally, sometimes as a form of procrastination. 2 (context transitive English) To sinter. 3 (context transitive English) To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying. 4 (context transitive English) To break into small pieces or fragments.

WordNet
fritter
  1. n. small quantity of fried batter containing fruit or meat or vegetables

  2. v. spend frivolously and unwisely; "Fritter away one's inheritance" [syn: frivol away, dissipate, shoot, fritter away, fool, fool away]

Wikipedia
Fritter

Fritter is a name applied to a wide variety of fried foods, usually consisting of a portion of batter or breading which has been filled with bits of meat, seafood, fruit, or other ingredients.

Usage examples of "fritter".

After that she lost interest, limped away, sat down beside Lydia, and spent the next half hour interviewing the corpse, scribbling copious notes, happy as a little old corn fritter in a puddle of blackstrap molasses.

In lieu of Squeak food, they were supping on the least putrid human groceries available: dandelion salad with Angostura bitters, grilled black pudding, squid fritters, kim chee, Icelandic hrokkbraud and Marmite, Bananas Foster, and a big pitcher of scorpion cocktails made with Demerara rum.

The work and worry syndrome, which never satisfies the insatiable demand for more and more things, fritters our God-given lives away on the nothingness of worldly status.

Honeycomb Pudding, Apple Fritters, and Rhode Island Johnnycakes all turned out great.

Brigade must be husbanded, not frittered away by being committed to the battle in dribs and drabs.

It is this ignorance of the real value of money that squanders fortunes, and fritters away accumulated patrimonies so laboriously earned and saved in the frugal provinces.

The first course, put on the tables all at once, as were all the succeeding courses, consisted of tiny pasties full of codfish liver or beef marrow, a brewet of sliced pork in a spicy sauce, greasy fritters of more beef marrow, eels in a ginger-flavored aspic, bream fillets in a watery green sauce of herbs, a baron of tough and stringy beef for each pair of diners, boiled shoulders of pork and veal, and, to bring the course to an end, a seven-foot sturgeon, cooked whole and served with the skin replaced, surrounded by bowls of a sauce that Bass thought would have made a Mexican or Korean homesick, so hot was it.

One room was largely given over to a buffet table burdened with platters of conger in souse, beef marrow fritters, meat tiles, friants, numble pie and florentine.

Than no talent to fritter in the first place, lying around guzzling because I haven't the balls to .

The barrista, grinning, offered up another apple fritter, and I realized I wasn't anywhere near hungry enough for lunch.

Fortunately, Jamie had brought plenty of food from Jocasta's camp, and I sat down at last to a pleasant meal of potato fritters, buttered barmocks, fried ham, and-at lasd-coffee, wondering just what else might happen today.

But this creation of the Craftsmaster, like the other, frittered away to impotence.

And prairie dogs, attempting to make the higher ground of the Milagro foothills, became so heavily coated with mud that they soon grew exhausted, and when the mud hardened they died, looking like plump little fritters, croquettes, or corn dogs.

Personally, I think it's a damn shame Desere frittered away all this money on frivolities when it could have served a really useful purpose.

He worries that his girls' dowries will be frittered away while in other hands.