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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



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

... not come to college to fritter away his time—to row, play cricket, give wine-parties, or drive dog-carts; he had not even come because it was "the thing," or afforded a "good introduction into the world." No, he was here for one purpose, and one alone. ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... election turned on the size of mesh proper to be used in the drift-net fishery. We wore favours of red, white and blue, symbolising our hatred of the mesh favoured by Mr. Gladstone; and carried our man. Had other constituencies as sternly declined to fritter away their voting strength upon side issues, Lord Salisbury would now be in power with a solid majority ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... kind 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 thoughtful man ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the monk, with a meaning look, "to fritter away the time in gewgaws which shall raise up the pale ghosts of hopes of early years. Bury them, heap penance and mortification on their heads, keep them down, and let the convent ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... AFFECTIONS.—Young men 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, who, becoming disgraced, retaliate ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... smothered, without awakening the quick attention of its mother; and at the first whisper of our Father's name, He is at hand to hear and bless. Alas! we have too often grieved His Holy Spirit by a string of selfish petitions, or a number of formal platitudes! To the wonderment of angels, we thus fritter away the most precious and sacred opportunities. Be still, then, before you pray, to consider what to ask; order your prayers for presentation: and be sure to begin the blessed interview with words of sincere and ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... prompt. Where there is a task to be performed, lose no time. Work does not grow easier by delay. Do not fritter away strength in trifles; begin at once upon the duties which call for instant obedience. We do not read that Abraham asked Sarah's advice, the command was plain. She might not have been willing. Never ask advice from those whom God ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... 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

... chicken or fowl in small pieces, and place in an earthen dish. Season well with salt, pepper and the juice of a fresh lemon. Let the meat stand one hour; then make a fritter batter, and stir the pieces into it. Drop, by the spoonful, into boiling fat, and fry till a light brown. Drain, and serve immediately. Any kind of cold meat, if tender, can be used in ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... For the "fritter batter," sift together 1 pint of flour, 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder and a pinch of salt. Stir slowly into it a pint of milk, then the well-beaten yolks of 3 eggs, and, lastly, the stiffly-beaten whites of eggs. Beat hard ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... In Fritter Batter.—Beat the yolk of one egg slightly, and add a half cup of milk; stir into this two-thirds of a cup of flour; stir in the well beaten white of the egg and a teaspoonful of olive oil. Wash and remove the pores from the ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... I confess that sometimes all my life seems to me a mere sham,—that I am going to church, and saying solemn words, and being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn vows and prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look at my life, all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, and sewing-silk, cord, braid, and buttons,—the next fashion of bonnets,—how to make my old dresses answer instead of new,—how to keep the air of the world, while in my heart I am cherishing something higher and better. If there's anything I detest it is hypocrisy; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... so chaste that had made her more fair With their sweetness, their perfume, and light, Were gone—and her bosom, now cheerless and bare, Grew cold in the dewy night. Thus they who, in youth, Mistake flirting for truth, And fritter their love but in play, Will behold, like the maid, All their brightest charms fade, And ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... buckwheat dat is trashed in de field—takes two or tree waters, and salt is better dan fresh, cause you see fresh water make him sick. Well, now, Massa, de question is, what will you ab; clam soup, clam sweetbread, clam pie, clam fritter, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... pieces of cold roast chicken. Make a fritter batter, stir the pieces in. Drop by spoonfuls into boiling fat. Lemon juice added to ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous

... in Arkansas? Me? We landed at Marianna, Arkansas in 1889. They emigranted us here. They sure said they had fritter trees and a molasses pond. They said to just shake the tree and the fritters would fall in the pond. You know anybody that had any sense wouldn't believe that. Yes ma'am, they sure told that lie. 'Course there was times when you could make good ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... Betty impatiently. "I fly around and make a great commotion, but I fritter away my time, because I forget to keep my eyes on the ball. Why, I haven't done anything ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... sons. As they themselves had been taught to concentrate their energies upon useful occupation, for which society would pay as for value received, they had doubtless often conferred, and concluded that was the happiest and best life for their sons, instead of allowing them to fritter away the precious years of youth in aimless frivolity, to be followed in later years by a disappointing and ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... runs out of it." "May I never be bereaved of thee, O my lord," replied the hungry one and began to ask him about the abundance of musk in the fritters. "Such is my custom," he answered: "they put me a dinar weight of musk in every honey fritter and half that quantity of ambergris." All this time my brother kept wagging head and jaws till the master cried, "Enough of this. Bring us the dessert!" Then said he to him,' "Eat of these almonds and walnuts and raisins; and of this and that (naming divers kinds of dried fruits), ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... argoul, as my friend, the grave-digger, said, the heroine of this Epic must have had an object in view. Otherwise, what would take her to the Cupboard? She was evidently a strong-minded woman, and would not fritter away her valuable time for nothing. To the Cupboard she went "to get her poor dog a bone," says the author, following out the logical sequence of the plot. The hero of the tail was not in the Cupboard. Of course not. The "bone" was there. Ah! but was the bone there? The ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... be your 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 ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... persistently beguile their scanty leisure by studying tales of sentiment, and soldiers are, if possible, more eager than seamen for that sort of reading. The righteous organiser comes on the scene, and says, "We must not let these poor souls fritter away any portion of their lives on frivolities. Let us give them less of light literature and more of the serious work which may lead them to strive toward higher things." The aggressively righteous individual has a most eccentric notion of what constitutes ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... belief that it can have only one meaning, the same for all, involving certain duties of which there can be no question, and admitting certain relaxations which have endured the moral test. A man may not fritter away the years that are granted him; and that is what I seem to you to be ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... not much news of the war, beyond the fact that the Huguenots were besieging Poictiers, a piece of information that I was sorry to hear, since it seemed to me they would fritter away their strength for nothing. The Admiral, however, doubtless possessed good reasons for his actions, and in any case it was not for ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... ragged hordes to the popular festival. The scene has a strange gypsy wildness. From the round point of Atocha to where Cybele, throned among spouting waters, drives southward her spanking team of marble lions, the park is filled with the merry roysterers. At short intervals are the busy groups of fritter merchants; over the crackling fire a great caldron of boiling oil; beside it a mighty bowl of dough. The bunolero, with the swift precision of machinery, dips his hand into the bowl and makes a delicate ring of the tough dough, which he throws into ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... was a splendid fellow and a 'dead game sport.' It seemed to him a little like 'babying' to fritter away the few minutes remaining in safety play. The more generous instinct prevailed, and he 'took a chance.' He shot the ball back to the quarter. He in turn passed it to the back, who got in a perfect ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... closely wrapped in his grey cloak, His 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 he shall strike a road shall lead him home; Yet all his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... The girls 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 joined ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... for there were none of those vexatious little legacies and donations to charities, which fritter away a man's possessions, and damage the majestic effect of that little paragraph in the morning papers accorded to Forsytes who die with a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... been the manner of bestowal which impressed him rather than the size of the pourboire itself, for he examined it with lively marks of interest and appreciation and then told me, with rather a waggish air, I thought, that he did not intend to fritter it away upon riotous living but would take it home and show it to his little ones. To which I responded in all seriousness that I was glad he did not contemplate expending it upon strong drink, such as grog or rum. As though instantly sobered by my tone, he promised me that ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... the critter" next day, with a sound hickory stick. When next day came, however, and she went out to milk, the youngster would shamble up to greet her with such amiable trust in his eyes that her wrath would be, for the moment, disarmed, and her fell purpose would fritter out in a futile "Scat, you brute!" Then she would condone her weakness by thinking of what she would do ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... have it, and he sent it me some time since," he said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her—she and I are old friends—she might make an exception ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... threshold shall never be crossed by any but those to whom I grant permission, or by the emperor's judge, to whom I must yield. You, I forbid to enter. Sirona is not here, and you would do better to seek her elsewhere than to fritter away your time here." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Peru,"—a direction towards which the commercial ambitions of Great Britain had a traditional inclination, fostered by some military men and statesmen, who foresaw the break-up of the Spanish colonial system. "Above all, I hope we shall have no buccaneering expeditions. Such services fritter away our troops and ships, when they are so much wanted for more important occasions, and are of no use beyond enriching a few individuals. I know not, if these sentiments coincide with yours; but as glory, and not money, has through life been your pursuit, I should rather think ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... slave or wife Than fritter now blank life away: 70 Then night had holiness of night, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... couldn't afford to fritter away any more time in the cattle business, having a wife to support in the style she had been accustomed to, so he would go to work at his trade. He picked out Wallace, just over in Idaho, as a young and growing town ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... that game-bird; it's imposs', I've got stumped three times I want nothing more to do with you. You're skinning me this evening, and you robbed me the other day, too, you infernal fritter!"—"What did you revoke for, mugwump?"—"I'd only ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... cares make some men dissipated; too many friends make others. The exactions of "society," the balls, parties, receptions, and various entertainments constantly being given and attended by the beau monde, constitute a most wasting species of dissipation. Others, again, fritter away all their time and strength in political agitations, or in controversies and gossip; others in idling with music or some other one of the fine arts; others in feasting or fasting, as their dispositions and feelings incline. But the man of concentration ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... 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

... revere. It taxed her patience to the utmost to sit through the daily diatribe against Sir Michael Cunningham, her hero of heroes. But even the violent opposition seemed preferable to the want of interest shown by the others. Mrs. Fane-Smith had time to fritter away at least half an hour after breakfast in the most desultory conversation, the most fruitless discussions with Rose as to some detail of dress; but she always made the excuse that she "had no time" to ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... published about 1610. 'Let any thing come in the shape of fodder or eating-stuffe, it is wellcome, whether it be Sawsedge, or Custard, or Eg-pye, or Cheese-cake, or Flawne, or Foole, or Froyze,[*] or Tanzy, or Pancake, or Fritter, or Flap iacke,[**] or Posset, or Galleymawfrey, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... proper, natural boys, that 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

... civic spirit turned to fierceness by despair. And he strikes out unerringly enough at the ministers of Rome's decline—at the poets who chatter and the rhetoricians who declaim on merely 'literary' topics; the rich who fritter away life on private luxuries and the pursuit of trivial aims; the debased Greek with his "smattering of encyclopaedic knowledge," but no devotion to the city in which he only hopes to ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 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 little sins ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... were mere questions of right or wrong? You had a world of light and frivolous women to choose from, your own kind of women who could dance and fritter life away in following fads that make for license—but you must come into the household of a man who has tried to fight God's battles; standing against these encroachments of Satan which you advocate—and beguile my only daughter into telling me that I must choose between surrender or the ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... cut into slices; add sugar and lemon juice. Dip each slice in plain fritter batter. Fry to light brown in deep fat. Drain and ...
— The New Dr. Price Cookbook • Anonymous

... of the report of Shortland and Magrath, we are wholly unable to reconcile the report of our Legislature with those which they assume as facts, and upon which the principles of their report were, in part, predicated. It exhibits to our view a disposition to fritter away the enormities of the British Government, and a determination to justify them in every act of barbarity, however unjustifiable in its circumstances, or however shocking ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... or four weeks, and I concluded for once, at least, to loosen the strings of my purse, if I never did again; so I laid out to expend three dollars or so, each day, say eighty dollars for the trip; a good round sum, I assure you, to fritter away; but, by banks of Brandywine, I was determined to do it, and I did. It was very odd, but the first person I met at New York was an old friend, a schoolmate of mine. I was glad to see him, and sorry enough to learn that he had failed in business—had a large family—poor—in ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... But the Hall is for the girls—not the girls for the Hall. Some flighty, irresponsible girls, under the influence of the school, develop into strong characters, and leave there to do good work. But there are always a few who fritter their time, and leave the same as they enter. But even these must be given the opportunity for development, if they are capable of it. You know that is ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... black and blue; she had had two of her tiny teeth knocked out. The men were furious—she was a pet with them; and she would not say who had done it, though she knew twenty swords would have beaten him flat as a fritter if she had given his name. I got her to sit to me some days after. I pleased her with her own picture. I asked her to tell me why she would not say who had ill-treated her. She put her head on one side like a robin, and told me, in a whisper: 'It was one of my comrades—because ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... self-knowledge. His countryman, the painter Kwiatkowski, calling one day on Chopin found him and Mickiewicz in the midst of a very excited discussion. The poet urged the composer to undertake a great work, and not to fritter away his power on trifles; the composer, on the other hand, maintained that he was not in possession of the qualities requisite for what he was advised to undertake. G. Mathias, who studied under Chopin from 1839 to 1844, remembers a ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... religious belief, that "God made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth;" and on this we would base one of our arguments for the subordination of a part of the human family. It is not necessary to the vindication of our cause, or of truth, to deny the authority, or to fritter away the evident meaning of any part of the word of God, as is done by most of the abolitionists. It is sufficient for our purpose that we have shown that the negro is an inferior variety of the human race; that he is inferior in ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... us fritter no more time. Go you out now and find where Nais is gaoled, and bring me news how I can say ten words to her, and press a ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... far along in years as you, but I am old enough to feel that no person ought to fritter away the most ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... Iver was behaving as a pattern daughter, cherishing her mother and father and making home sweet, exercising, in fact, that prudent economy of wilfulness which preserves it for one great decisive struggle, and scorns to fritter it away on the details of daily life. Girls have adopted these tactics from the earliest days (so it is recorded or may be presumed), and wary are the parents who are not hoodwinked by them or, even if they perceive, are altogether unsoftened. Janie was very saintly at Fairholme; the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... Ballantree's undoing. I preserved her daughter from those dangers, and gave her a religious education. Levity was sternly rebuked in her. She had no young acquaintances to teach her foolishness, or tell her of her mother's sin. She was allowed no money to fritter away on vanities, no silly novels to read, such as those your friends write, no frivolous pursuits which could distract her mind from duty—yet she is her mother over again, and, like her mother, runs away from my house by stealth, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... 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 of small and ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... 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 ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... walnuts and hold one at a time in the bowl of a long-handled spoon dipped for 10 seconds in boiling hot oil. Fritter the "walnuts" so, and serve at ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... 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, they are ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... shouted, "that must be our watch-word. The curse of the ranchers is that they fritter away their strength. Now, we must stand together, now, NOW. Here's the crisis, here's the moment. Shall we meet it? I CALL FOR THE LEAGUE. Not next week, not to-morrow, not in the morning, but now, now, now, this very moment, before we go out of that door. Every ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... 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 ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... Jabez had come to Ruth, when she was alone, and thrust a roll of coin in her hand. "Ye'll want some ter fritter away as us'al, Niece Ruth," he had said in ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... seemed to me," returned Mr. Ricardo with feeling. "Of an evening the governor would stroll out into the sala and fritter his life away playing cards with the juez of the place—a little Dago with a pair of black whiskers—ekarty, you know, a quick French game, for small change. And the comandante, a one-eyed, half-Indian, flat-nosed ruffian, and I, we had to stand around ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... which were being collected about Aleppo for Yilderim. The natural result of granting this request will be that true safety will never be attained on the Sinai Front by a pure defensive, and that the Irak undertaking will certainly fritter away owing to want of driving ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... with Renee, something of a resemblance to three days of her; anticipation and wonder filling the first, she the next, the adieu the last: every hour filled. And the first day was not over yet. He forced himself to calmness, that he might not fritter it, and walked up and down the room he was dressing in, examining its foreign decorations, and peering through the window, to quiet his nerves. He was in her own France with her! The country borrowed hues from Renee, and lent some. This chivalrous France framed and interlaced her image, aided ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... needless to recount all the varied incidents of the next five days which were wasted here, by the thousand and one stories which the Abban produced to fritter away my time near his home, and swindle me out of my property. The time had now arrived when by appointment I should have been at Berbera; and as I was not then aware at what time the fair usually broke up, I felt much afraid of being too late ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... night to the play. Invited out to a party, but did not go;—right. Refused to go to Lady * *'s on Monday;—right again. If I must fritter away my life, I would rather do it alone. I was much tempted;—C * * looked so Turkish with her red Turban, and her regular, dark, and clear features. Not that she and I ever were, or could be, any thing; but I love any aspect ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... in Old Hickory, "you'd be glad to fritter away another six months and let those International Power people jump in ahead of us. No, thanks. I mean to see if I can't get a little action now. Robert, who have we out there in the office who's not especially busy? Oh, yes, Torchy. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... with a look of intense surprise at Nathan's simplicity. "Go to, foolish youth!" said he; "what, after I have waited months and months for vengeance, would you have me fritter it away for want of waiting a day or two longer? No, I will strike, not the empty cup from his hand, but the full cup from his lips. Aha! you have seen the Jew insulted and despised in many lands; have patience now and you shall see how he can give blow for blow; ay! old, and feeble, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... : felicxa. foundation : fundamento foundry : fandejo. fountain : fontano. fowl : kortbirdo. fox : vulpo. frame : kadro. freckle : lentugo. free : liber'a, -igi; senpaga. freeze : frostigxi, glaci'igi, -igxi. frequent : ofta; vizitadi. fringe : frangxo. fritter : fritajxo. frock : vesteto. "-coat," surtuto. frog : rano. frolic : petoli. frown : sulk'o, -igi. frugal : sxparema, fruit : frukto. "-ful," fruktodona. fry : friti, (spawn) frajo, "-ing" "pan," pato, fritilo. fuel : brulajxo, hejtajxo. fulfil : ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... scholarship, he was unquestionably proficient. No white man in all the neighboring section, ranked with him intellectually. Despite the lack of all knowledge of his moral character and previous life, he was pronounced as much too good a man to fritter away his time ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... take your leisure. Youth is the time that commands time and space. But for my part, if I can only manage this plate of soup, and a slice of that fish, and then one help of mutton, and just an apple-fritter, or some trifle of that sort, I shall be quite as lucky as I can hope to be. Duty perpetually spoils my dinner, and I must get some clever fellow to invent a plate that will keep as hot as duty is in these volcanic times. But I never complain; I am so used to it. Eat your dinners, children, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... instant to waste, nor was it the way of the ape-man to fritter away precious moments in the uncertainty of belated decision. Before Lu-don or any other could guess what was in the mind of the condemned, Tarzan with all the force of his great muscles dashed the screaming hierophant in the face of the high priest, and, as though the two actions ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... is the common inability to realize in the thoughts of the mind, and to hold in the faith of the feelings, a conception so vast, so mysterious, so remote from the usual routine of the selfish trifles and petty notions which monopolize the powers and fritter down the faculties of the average people of the nineteenth century. The battle of sensualism, the scramble over material interests, the wearing absorption in the small and evanescent struggles of social rivalry, the irritated attention ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... 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

... thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity to fritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourself unnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going to put your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for a week, and in a week you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... to me like that," thought Daniel to himself. He turned deathly pale, went up to her, and placed his hand like an iron vise about her arm. "I shall permit you to waste my money; I shall not object if you fritter your time away in the company of good-for-nothing people; if you regard my health and peace of mind as of no consequence whatever, I shall say nothing; if you let your poor little child suffer and pine away, I shall keep ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... was not; you had but one rival; a very young lady, wise before her age; a blonde, with violet eyes. She was dressed in light mauve-colored silk, without a single flounce, or any other tomfoolery to fritter away the sheen and color of an exquisite material; her sunny hair was another wave of color, wreathed with a thin line of white jessamine flowers closely woven, that scented the air. This girl was the moon of that assembly, and you were ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... later. "He's a little hard to understand sometimes, but he knows a lot about art. I am going to take up my drawing again. He says that youth is the time to do things, and a girl ought not to fritter away her time." ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... roaring voice, and was promptly arrested for inciting a riot. Nobody cared enough seriously for the redoubtable Sam to object to this. The situation was ticklish, but the police handled it tactfully for once, opposing only a passive opposition, leaving the crowd to fritter its energies in purposeless cursing, surging to and fro, and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... branch of painting, pray,' said the master to Lancelot, 'will you apply your knowledge of the antique? Will you, like this foolish fellow here' (with a kindly glance at Claude), 'fritter yourself away on Nymphs and Venuses, in which neither he nor ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... was sprung of a poor but honest and industrious stock in the city. He had not had many talents or opportunities to begin with, but he had made the very best of the two he had. And then, when the two estates of Mr. Fritter-day and Mr. Let-good- slip were sequestered to the crown, the advisers of the crown handed over those two neglected estates to Mr. Meditation to improve them for the common good, and after him to his son, whose name we know. The ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... mistaken about himself. This business of rhetorician was unworthy of him. The Master of the field had chosen him to be one of the great reapers in the time of harvest. For a long while Monnica had foreseen the exceptional place that Augustin was to take in the Church. Why fritter away his talent and intelligence in selling vain words, when there were heresies to combat, the Truth to make shine forth, when the Donatists were capturing the African basilicas from the Catholics? What, in fact, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... towards him, unconscious of his presence. She was full grown at last, in woman's virgin prime, her mind, her soul, her body, all full and strong with pure thoughts, natural instincts and human passions. Her very sadness gave her depths of feeling that never come to those who titter and fritter youth away. Her very ignoring of the love-instincts in her, absorbed as her thoughts were in other things, only gave those instincts the untrammelled freedom that alone gives vigorous growth. She was barbarian, as her thoughts had been beside the dying baby: the barbarian cultured, ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... the party crowded out on to the rear platform as Percival helped Miss Milbrey up the steps. Uncle Peter had evidently been chatting with Shepler, for as they came out the old man was saying, "'Get action' is my motto. Do things. Don't fritter. Be something and be it good and hard. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... prepared to put his hand to anything he finds to do, and can be trusted, there is always employment and promotion waiting; but for him who is too proud or too lazy to work, or who prefers to fritter his time in dissipation and amusement, there is nothing but failure and ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... flour, a table-spoonful of melted butter, and as much cold water as will make a thin batter; drip the apples on a sieve, mix them with the batter, take one slice with a spoonful of batter to each fritter, fry them quickly of a light brown, drain them well, put them in a dish, sprinkling sugar over each, and glaze ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph

... Wendell Holmes Hospital succeed, and so I come out in this way over my own signature and admit that the building does not belong to me and that, so far as I am concerned, the man who files a lien on it will simply fritter away his time. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... at this curious specimen of Beauclerc's versatility, but said, "I fear he will fritter away his powers on a hundred different petty objects, and do nothing at last worthy of his abilities. He will scatter and divide the light of his genius, and show us every change of the prismatic colours—curious and beautiful to behold, but dispersing, wasting the light he ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... bitter truth: So fantasies could break and fritter youth That he had long ago lost earnestness, Lost will to work, lost power to even express The need of working!" (vol. i. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... such a morbid appetite for the exciting subjects discussed in them, as to tempt you to break in upon your systematic course of reading. Newspapers and periodicals contain much trash; and you may fritter away all your leisure upon them, to the great injury of your mind and heart. Your chief object in reading them should be, to preserve in your mind the history of your own times; and to understand the subjects which interest the ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... yo 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 meat ter be hed ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... 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 &c (part) 51; drop in the ocean. animalcule &c 193. trifle &c (unimportant thing) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... catching Alice's eye, and Alice had well known what she had meant. "You see," the glance had said, "Plantagenet is beginning to take an interest in his cousin, and you know why. The man who is to be the father of the future dukes must not be allowed to fritter away his time in obscurity. Had I that cradle up-stairs Jeffrey might be as idle as he pleased." Alice ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... come to a serious matter, your conduct towards women. Wherever you visit make it a principle not to fritter yourself away in a petty round of gallantry. A man of the last century who had great social success never paid attention to more than one woman of an evening, choosing the one who seemed the most neglected. That man, my dear ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... Therese is a fool. She has no judgment whatever, money drips through her fingers. I've no intention of allowing her to fritter away the property it has taken me a lifetime to get together. You will find I have tied it up pretty securely. She won't be able to throw it away, she won't be at liberty to do anything—I repeat, anything—without your full ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... suffer we have brought on ourselves, if not by actual fault, at least by ignorance or thoughtlessness. Too often we think only of the happiness of the moment, and sacrifice that of the life. Troubles comparatively seldom come to us, it is we who go to them. Many of us fritter our life away. La Bruyere says that "most men spend much of their lives in making the rest miserable;" or, as ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... great objects in your life, then, if you fritter away your interest on an idle acquaintance whom you will forget as soon as you are out of her sight, and, if you'll pardon me, who will forget you, except when something calls up your name, or a reminiscence of you." Even Edmonson as he stood staring at her drew his breath like one recovering ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... waxed fat upon pandering to our weaknesses. This passed away now, like a single night's dream, and incidentally gave rise to a certain amount of complaining from those who suffered by it. But the public was no more inclined to heed these complainings than it was to fritter away its time and substance in drinking-bars or in places of amusement. The famous "Middle-class Music-halls" faded quickly into the limbo of forgotten failures, and the most popular of public performers ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... this one before the syrup runs out of it!" "May I never be bereaved of thee, O my lord!" replied my brother, and asked him of the abundance of musk in the fritters. "It is my custom," said the other, "to have three pennyweights of musk and half that quantity of ambergris put into each fritter." All this time my brother was wagging his jaws and moving his head and mouth, till the host said, "Enough of this! Bring us the dessert." Then said he to him, "Eat of these almonds and walnuts and raisins and of this and that," naming different kinds ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... earn it? You don't know, Robert. You don't know that you aren't aiding and abetting a felony when you help him to fritter it away. Was ever so much money earned in an honest fashion? I tell you there never was. I tell you, also, that lumps of gold are no more to that man than chunks of coal to the miners over yonder. He could build his house of them and ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... one it was too. I proposed that in the afternoon some of us should go to church. Father sat upon the idea as a mad one. Walk two miles in such heat for nothing! as walk we would he compelled to do, horseflesh being too precious in such a drought to fritter it away in idle jaunts. Surprising to say, however, Harold, who never walked anywhere when he could get any sort of a horse, uttered a wish to go. Accordingly, when the midday dinner was over, he, Stanley, and I set out. Going to church was quite the event of the week to the residents around ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... what this unknown person selects for them. Instead of going to the library and cultivating their own tastes, and pursuing some subject that will increase their mental vigor and add to their permanent stock of thought, they fritter away their time upon a hash of literature chopped up for them by a person possibly very unfit even to make good hash. The mere statement of this surrender of one's judgment of what shall be his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... 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 still less capacity for the management ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... do no more than fritter away their energy in inventing things which they are incapable of using. They need a master of another race, a Gluck or a Napoleon, to turn ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... fritter did Romeo Augustus eat that morning. After breakfast he roamed aimlessly about the farm. He would not go near the barn. How could he look upon ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... feel that we must give an account of our stewardship. Ester, do you see how people who ask God to help them in every little thing which they have to decide—in the least expenditure of money—can after that deliberately fritter it away?" ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... 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 eternity by making a proper ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... flour, milk, and eggs; season with a very little nutmeg. Beard the oysters, and put as many as you think proper in each fritter. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... to make myself useful. And if I'd had any money that would have been on interest, so that I could have some security against want in my old age. Anyway, it isn't likely I should have been allowed to fritter away my time." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... of his ancestors, Lord Runnymede had inevitably taken "Noblesse oblige" as his private motto. But of what service was nobility if its obligations were abolished? He sometimes pictured with a shudder the fate of the surviving French nobility—retaining their titles by courtesy, and compelled to fritter away their lives upon chateaux, travelling, aeroplanes, or amatory intrigues, instead of directing their wisdom and influence to the right government of the State. The guillotine was better. He could not imagine his descendants ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... follows are the words of Christ. The import of these is guarded by his declaration that they are "true and faithful." There is a reality and definiteness in them, which will not admit of their being added to, or taken from. So that any attempt to fritter away their meaning, will be followed by the curses written in the book, and a loss of the blessings ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... stand thou still ..." See Joshua x. 12. Martin's picture of "Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still" was painted in 1816. Writing to Barton, in the letter quoted from above, Lamb says: "Just such a confus'd piece is his Joshua, fritter'd into 1000 fragments, little armies here, little armies there—you should see only the Sun and Joshua ... for Joshua, I was ten minutes ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... ask health; and having it, never notice it till it is gone. In the ardent pursuit of enjoyment, we waste our capacity of appreciation. Every sweet we gain is sauced with a bitter. Our eyes forever bent on the future, which can never be ours, we fritter away the present, which alone we possess. Ere we have got ourselves ready to live, we must die. Fooling ourselves even here, we represent death as the portal to joy unspeakable; and forthwith discredit our words by avoiding it ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... driven to the life by force of circumstances—yet still an adventurer. His position proclaimed him one. He looked for reward from the country which had purchased his sword, and had no inclination to fritter away his chances of espousing any cause but the winning one. At the same time he was an Englishman: a birth privilege carrying with it weighty responsibilities, which he could not away with as easily ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... pedagogues, who, not being required by the public to properly inform themselves with a full knowledge of these important studies, are perhaps in some measure excused for their shortcomings. Instead of the inculcation of these useful and more vital lessons of life, they are required to fritter away time and health over a French grammar, or other equally foolish study, which cannot, in a vast majority of cases, be of the least service to them. They had much better be at home making mud-pies (which, by the way, ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... sustained. But, in England, the vast intricacy and complex interweaving of property, of commerce, of commercial interests, of details infinite in number, and infinite in littleness, break down and fritter away into fractions and petty minutiae, the whole huge labyrinth of our public affairs. It is scarcely necessary to explain my meaning. In Athens, the question before the public assembly was, peace or war—before our House of Commons, perhaps the Exchequer Bills' Bill; at ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... chafed with impatience during this tirade, in which he justly suspected an attempt to fritter away ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade



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



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