fryer

Etymology

It is formed from English fry + -er,^[1][2][3][4] and is also spelled frier.^[3][5][2] The verb is from Middle English frien, from Old French frire (“to fry”),^[6][3][1] from Latin frīgō (“to roast, fry”).^[6][3][1] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to a root reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to cook, bake”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Fish for frying, in the plural: 1851, in H. Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.^[1][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives 1851 as its first date.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From 1859, in G. A. Sala, a fryer was a person who fries fish, and also a vessel for frying it.^[1] In American use the word came to mean a young chicken suitable for frying, recorded from 1923 in Dialect Notes,^[1][3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged specifies a bird of about 2½ to 4 pounds, and also a rabbit of two and a half to three months.^[5] In parts of the United States, especially the Upper Midwest and the South, fryer or chicken fryer has meant a frying pan or skillet, and in New Jersey a small pepper.^[7] In slang the word has meant the electric chair, a figurative use of fry in the sense "to execute by electrocution",^[8] which Etymonline dates to 1929 in American slang;^[3] in Black British slang a fryer is someone who uses a gun.^[8]

Timeline

• 1851 – fish for frying.^[1][3]
• 1859 – a person who fries fish; a vessel for frying.^[1]
• 1923 – in the United States, a chicken suitable for frying.^[1][3]
• c. 1950 – in American regional use, a frying pan or skillet.^[7]
• 1999 – slang, the electric chair.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep pan or an electric appliance for frying food, often with a basket, as a deep fryer: She lowered the basket of potatoes into the fryer.^[9][5][10]
2. A young chicken suitable for frying, chiefly in North America.^[10][5][1]
3. A fish suitable for frying.^[1][11]
4. A young rabbit of about two and a half to three months, raised for the table.^[5]
5. A person who fries food, especially fish.^[1][11][5]
6. (slang) The electric chair.^[8]

Word family

• deep fryer

Related words

• fry
• friar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
8. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers