fritter

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: frit=ter

CIDE DICTIONARY

fritter, n. [OR. fritour, friture, pancake, F. friture frying, a thing fried, from frire to fry. See Far, v. t.].

•  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.  [1913 Webster]
•  A fragment; a shred; a small piece.  [1913 Webster]

  "And cut whole giants into fritters."  [1913 Webster]

Corn fritter. See under Corn.

fritter, v. t. 

•  To cut, as meat, into small pieces, for frying.  [1913 Webster]
•  To break into small pieces or fragments.  [1913 Webster]

  "Break all nerves, and fritter all their sense."  [1913 Webster]

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.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

fritter, v.tr.
1 (usu. foll. by away) waste (money, time, energy, etc.) triflingly, indiscriminately, or on divided aims.
2 archaic subdivide.

fritter, n. a piece of fruit, meat, etc., coated in batter and deep-fried (apple fritter).

Etymology

ME f. OF friture ult. f. L frigere frict- FRY(1)

THESAURUS

fritter

apple fritter, beignet, beignet aux pommes, bismarck, blow, cast away, consume, cruller, dissipate, doughnut, fastnacht, fool away, friedcake, fritter away, idle away, misspend, olykoek, raised doughnut, sinker, squander, throw away, twister, waste

ROGET THESAURUS

fritter

Smallness

N smallness, littleness, tenuity, paucity, fewness, meanness, insignificance (unimportance), mediocrity, moderation, small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum, vanishing point, material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace, minutiae, details, look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight, whit, tittle, shade, shadow, spark, scintilla, gleam, touch, cast, grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau, screed, smack, tinge, tincture, inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet, flitter, gobbet, mite, bit, morsel, crumb, seed, fritter, shive, snip, snippet, snick, snack, snatch, slip, scrag, chip, chipping, shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair, nutshell, thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful, fragment, fraction, drop in the ocean, animalcule, trifle, mere nothing, next to nothing, hardly anything, just enough to swear by, the shadow of a shade, finiteness, finite quantity, small, little, diminutive, minute, fine, inconsiderable, paltry, faint, slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited, meager, sparing, few, low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes, below par, under par, below the mark, at a low ebb, halfway, moderate, modest, tender, subtle, inappreciable, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small, atomic, corpuscular, microscopic, molecular, subatomic, mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare, near run, dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent, to a small extent, on a small scale, a little bit, a wee bit, slightly, imperceptibly, miserably, wretchedly, insufficiently, imperfectly, faintly, passably, pretty well, well enough, partially, in part, in a certain degree, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, comparatively, some, rather in some degree, in some measure, something, somewhat, simply, only, purely, merely, at least, at the least, at most, at the most, ever so little, as little as may be, tant soit peu, in ever so small a degree, thus far, pro tanto, within bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak, almost, nearly, well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but, near upon, close upon, peu s'en faut, near the mark, within an ace of, within an inch of, on the brink of, scarcely, hardly, barely, only just, no more than, about, thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say, be the same, be little more or less, no ways, no way, no wise, not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, not a jot, not a shadow, in no wise, in no respect, by no means, by no manner of means, on no account, at no hand, dare pondus idonea fumo, magno conatu magnas nugas, small sands the mountain, moments make the year.