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Fritter   Listen
verb
Fritter  v. t.  (past & past part. frittered; pres. part. 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."
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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fritter" Quotes from Famous Books



... Village philosophy," stormed Penelope. "You haven't the courage, the understanding to commit one big splendid sin that even the angels in heaven might approve, but you fritter away your souls and spoil your bodies in cheap ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... seen, Harriet must not fritter away her time writing plays; she must study Butler's Analogy. She must also read Baxter's Saints Rest, than which, says Mrs. Stowe, "no book ever affected me more powerfully. As I walked the pavements ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... sought. She flees, and man pursues. The folly of modern reformers, who would annul this provision, is evident. Were it done away with, man, ever prone to yield to woman's solicitations, and then most prone when yielding is most dangerous, would fritter away his powers at an early age, and those very impulses which nature has given to perpetuate the race would ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... pleasure roam, In foreign lands their fortune fritter; But love's pure joys be mine at home, Wi' my dear lass on ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... last day of service in these offices. This afternoon I will pay you what is due you, and to-morrow I will endeavor to get a boy who is willing to attend to business and not fritter away his time on ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... who keep contributing to each other's development in the very act of pouring out their hearts to each other. I have a strange feeling at my task, for I am learning what I once was. However, it is most instructive of all to see how two people who mutually further their purposes par force, fritter away their time through inner over-activity and outer excitement and disturbance; so that there is, after all, no result fully worthy of their capacities, tendencies, aims. The effect will be extremely edifying; for every ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... had laughingly resisted their hostess's appeal, "Just one more fritter, with another on each side to keep it warm,—though I don't know as they are fit to eat!" and on her positive refusal to let them help wash the dishes, had retired to the back doorstep, from which they could watch the sunset. Here they were ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... sell at a cent apiece. The akra is a small fritter or pancake, which may be made of fifty different things,—among others codfish, titiri, beans, brains, choux- carabes, little black peas (poix-zi-nou, "black-eyed peas"), or of crawfish (akra-cribche). When made of carrots, bananas, chicken, palm-cabbage, etc. and sweetened, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... become noted for your dress.... That's what exasperates me against you! No girl appreciates refinement and luxury more than you do. No woman has better taste, could use a large income to better advantage. And you have intelligence. You know you must have a competent husband. Yet you fritter away your opportunities. A very short time, and you'll be a worn, faded old maid, and the settled people who profess to be so fond of you will be laughing at you, and deriding you, and ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... trying to make him feel that as their honeymoon was ended and everyone had entertained for them it was high time Steve must retire from social life to a degree, and outdo her own father in the making of a vast fortune. She seldom begged him to ride with her or come home to luncheon to fritter away the best part of the afternoon in a pursuit of silver-pheasant ornaments for the dinner table. That phase of her selfishness was at an end. It was when Steve demanded the luxury of merely staying at home with no chattering peacocks of women and asinine, half-tipsy ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... commercial circles. This is the only safeguard upon which the faro bank relies. It shows, however, to what a dangerous extent gambling has laid hold of the mercantile community, how rottenness is at this hour the inward germ of apparent soundness, and how heads of heavy concerns fritter away ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... frost or snow, but will put forth its golden blossoms in the dreariest days of February, and after the flowers have passed away the foliage will remain as an ornament. To put in single roots is useless; it is far better to plant a few large patches than to fritter away the flower in a number ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... like that. You never used money to buy any thing. When Josiah went to Springfield to buy any thing, he took a cartload of things with him to exchange. That yaller picture-frame was paid for in greenings. But then people knew jest what they had. They didn't fritter their substance away in unchristian trifles, like your father, Eliza Jane, who doesn't know that there is a God who will smite him hip and thigh; for vengeance is mine, and those that believe in me. But here, singularly enough, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... entrance blanks or for further information concerning the United, the applicant may address any one of the following officers, who will gladly give details, and samples of amateur papers: Leo Fritter, President, 503 Central National Bank Bldg., Columbus, Ohio; H. P. Lovecraft, Vice-President, 598 Angell St., Providence, R. I.; Mrs. J. W. Renshaw, Second Vice-President, Coffeeville, Miss.; William J. Dowdell, Secretary, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... threaten that we may be in a future age. Each molecule, not alone of the atmosphere, but of the entire earth's substance, is kept aquiver by the energy which it receives, or has received, directly or indirectly, from the sun. Left to itself, each molecule would wear out its energy and fritter it off into the space about it, ultimately running completely down, as surely as any human-made machine whose power is not from time to time restored. If, then, it shall come to pass in some future age that the sun's rays fail us, the temperature of the globe must gradually ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... the Christmas book was wholly given up for this year: but I now resolve to make one effort more. I will go to Geneva to-morrow, and try on Monday and Tuesday whether I can get on at all bravely, in the changed scene. If I cannot, I am convinced that I had best hold my hand at once; and not fritter my spirits and hope away, with that long book before me. You may suppose that the matter is very grave when I can so nearly abandon anything in which I am deeply interested, and fourteen or fifteen close MS. pages of which, that have made me laugh and cry, are lying in my desk. Writing this letter ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... It was only after being disappointed of a second Kilmarnock Edition of his poems that he had come to try his fortunes in the capital; and now that his hopes of a fuller edition and a wider field had been realised, the purpose of his visit was accomplished, and there was no need to fritter his time away ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... head upon a pile of caked thin leaves Whose life had dried up full two years ago. Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew As friable as that pale ashen fritter; It had more body than reason dare expect From that so beautiful creature's best intent. He waking found me no more there; and wanders Through AEtna's woods to-day Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, Till ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... and set them a stewing in a silver Dish, with a little strong Broth and Salt, with a stick of Cinamon, two or three Cloves, and a piece of an Orange Pill; when they are stewed, take them from the liquor and lay them upon a Pye-plate cooling; when they are cold, have some good Fritter-batter made with Sack, and dip them therein; then have ready to fry them, some excellent clarified Butter very hot in a Pan, and fry them therein; when they are fryed wring in the juyce of three or four Oranges, and toss them once or twice in ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."

... whom he said he looked with most hope for a successful issue to the struggle. He begged that they might be told that his last breath was spent in advising that they should make one great, combined, and final effort for the total overthrow of republicanism in France, and not fritter away their strength in prolonged contests with an enemy so infinitely their superior in numbers. Agatha promised faithfully to be a true messenger of these last injunctions, and then she saw the Vendean chief expire in perfect ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... Prince, "you have yourselves judged the cause, you have yourselves signed the decree. It remains for me to cause your order to be executed, since it is you who with the heart of a negro, with the cruelty of Medea, made a fritter of this beautiful head, and chopped up these lovely limbs like sausage-meat. So quick, make haste, lose not a moment! throw them this very instant into a large dungeon, where they shall ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... fritter away what you have got. It isn't worth while to spend money on people who can ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... the secretaire, and glanced over the page of figures. Then she added: "I did well to leave a blank space. I'll put down what I pay him on the margin. You'll see, now, he'll fritter it all away by degrees. That's what I've been expecting ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... President. Why did the President put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a well-meaning politician like Banks with ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... Biscat, Maid Dishes, Marchpanes, Leeches, and Snow, Craknels, Caudels, Cakes, Broths, Fritter-stuffe, Puddings, Tarts, Syrupes, ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous

... commence courting long before they think of marrying, and where they entertain no thoughts of marriage. They fritter away their own affections, and pride themselves on their conquests over the female heart; triumphing in having so nicely fooled them. They pursue this sinful course so far as to drive their pitiable victims, one after another, from respectable society, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... many who want to make the most of life. There are many who want to be their best in life. This is not a play-ground, or a place to trifle with time. It is a place of work and effort, a place of purpose and earnestness, a place to do something. Life is not given us to squander nor fritter away, but was given us to accomplish a purpose in the mind of the Creator. If we will set ourselves to live as we should, God will help us and no man can hinder us. We are purchasing treasures for ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... er bout, dat brung dat hundred head er folks de time us cum. Dey tole us dat in Arkansas dat de hogs jes layin' er roun already baked wid de knives en de forks stickin' in 'em ready fer ter be et, en dat dere wuz fritter ponds eberywhars wid de fritters er fryin' in dem ponds er grease, en dat dar wuz money trees whar all yo hed ter do wuz ter pik de money offen 'em lak pickin' cotton offen de stalk, en us wuz sho put out when us git here en fine dat de onliest ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... his appeal to the court for a lunacy board at the first hint of an investigation into Crazy Laura's story. Three weeks of prying into "vice conditions", gambling, profiteering and the usual petty nonsense with which so many grand juries have managed to fritter away time under the misapprehension of applying some weighty sort of superhuman reasoning to ordinary things, and then good news. The body of twelve good men and true had worn themselves out with other matters and adjourned without even taking up the ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... sometimes to think of the days thrown away. A haze seems to hang before the eyes of such as he; and it is a haze that makes the future seem dim and vast, even while it obscures all the sharp outlines of things. The child is not capable of reasoning coherently, and therefore its disposition to fritter away time must be regarded as only the result of defective organization; but the young man and young woman can reason, and yet we find them perpetually making excuses for eluding time and eternity. Look at the young fellows ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... used to be "Back Home," boys whose daddies tormented them with: "Well, we Il see—" that's so exasperating!—or, "I wish you wouldn't tease, when you know we can't spare the money just at present." A perfectly foolish answer, that last. They had money to fritter away at the grocery, and the butcher-shop, and the dry-goods store, but when it came to a necessity of life, such as going to the circus, they let on they couldn't afford it. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood



Words linked to "Fritter" :   use up, fritter batter, French fritter, corn fritter, exhaust, fritter away, eat up, eat, waste, fool away, run through, wipe out, apple fritter, consume, frivol away, deplete, dissipate



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