Other forms: fritters, frittered, frittering
To fritter is to waste money or time in small amounts. Fritter it away, frittered the afternoon, fritter away a fortune.
It nearly always takes away, and the smallness is the point: money is frittered in amounts too little to notice until it has all gone. Quite separately, a fritter is a piece of food fried in batter — apple fritter, corn fritter — which is the older word, from the Latin for frying.
1verbfritterTo waste money or time in small amounts.
“He frittered away his savings on takeaways and taxis.”
2nounfoodA piece of food fried in batter.
“We had banana fritters with honey for dessert.”
fritter is a squandering, or a fried food.
The food fritter comes from Old French friture, from Latin frigere, to fry. The verb meaning to squander is a separate and obscure word.
Latin
frīgō — to fry
Vulgar Latin
*frīctūra
Old French
friture
Middle French
friture
Middle English
fryture
English, today
fritter
Middle English fryture, from Middle French friture, from Old French friture, from Vulgar Latin frīctūra, from Latin frīgō (“to fry”); compare fry. For the development of Middle English into, compare armour, batter, border, solder.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire