frizzle

English

Alternative forms

• frizle, frisle, frizel, frizil

Etymology

From frizz +‎ -le. Cognate with Old Frisian frisle, fresle ‎(“head of the hair, lock of hair”). More at frizz.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪzəl

Verb

frizzle (third-person singular simple present frizzles, present participle frizzling, simple past and past participle frizzled)

1. (transitive) To fry something until crisp and curled.
   • Mrs. Lincoln (Cook Book)

     Drain and heat it [shaved smoked beef] in one tablespoonful of hot butter, to curl or frizzle it.

2. (transitive) To scorch.
   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 3, in Death on the Centre Court:

     It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless. And results are all that concern me. […]”

3. (intransitive) To fry noisily, sizzle.

   The bacon frizzled in the pan.‎

4. To curl or crisp, as hair; to frizz; to crinkle.
   • 1599, Thomas Dekker, Old Fortunatus, London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1904, Act I, Scene 2, p. 22, [1]

     Now am I prouder of this poverty, which I know is mine own, than a waiting gentlewoman is of a frizzled groatsworth of hair, that never grew on her head.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gay to this entry?)

Noun

frizzle (plural frizzles)

1. A curl; a lock of hair crisped.
   • 1911, Jack London, The Whale Tooth

     The frizzle-headed man-eaters were loath to leave their fleshpots so long as the harvest of human carcases was plentiful. Sometimes, when the harvest was too plentiful, they imposed on the missionaries by letting the word slip out that on such a day there would be a killing and a barbecue.