Donut vs Fritter - What's the difference?
donut | fritter |
(North America) A deep-fried piece of dough or batter, commonly made in a toroidal or ellipsoidal shape, and mixed with various sweeteners and flavors, sometimes filled with jelly, custard or cream.
*1900 , (George Wilbur Peck), Peck’s bad boy and his pa, Stanton and Van Vliet, p. 107:
*:…Pa said he guessed he hadn’t got much appetite, and he would just drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut.
(North America) Anything in the shape of a torus
(North America, automobile) a peel-out or skid-mark in the shape of donut; a 360-degree skid.
(North America) A spare tire, smaller and less durable than a full-sized tire, only intended for temporary use.
A toroidal cushion typically used by hemorrhoid patients.
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A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter.
A fragment; a shred; a small piece.
* Hudibras
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.
To sinter.
To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying.
To break into small pieces or fragments.
* Alexander Pope
As nouns the difference between donut and fritter
is that donut is doughnut while fritter is a dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter.As a verb fritter is
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.donut
English
Alternative forms
* doughnutNoun
(en noun)Usage notes
Rare until 1950s, increasingly popular since then,“donut, doughnut]”, Google Ngram viewerpossibly influenced by spread of (w, Dunkin' Donuts) (founded 1950).“[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/09/google_ngram_viewer_a_language_time_machine.html The Language Time Machine: Google’s Ngram Viewer gave us a new way to explore history, but has it led to any real discoveries?”, by Elizabeth Weingarten, Slate, Sept. 9, 2013
References
fritter
English
(wikipedia fritter)Noun
(en noun)- And cut whole giants into fritters .
Derived terms
* apple fritter * corn fritter * French fritter * fritter batter * fritterware * oyster fritter * rice fritter * spam fritterVerb
(en verb)- I was supposed to do work, but I frittered around all afternoon.
- He can’t figure out how to finish the paper he’s writing, so he’s resorted to frittering with the fonts.
- Break all nerves, and fritter all their sense.
