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• frankfurter
  frankfurter

  noun

  a small, cooked and smoked sausage of beef or beef and pork, with or without casing; hot dog; wiener.
• Frankfurter
  Frankfurter

  noun

  Felix, 1882–1965, U.S. jurist, born in Austria: associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 1939–62.

frankfurter

¹ American  

[frangk-fer-ter] / ˈfræŋk fər tər /

Also frankfort,

noun

1. a small, cooked and smoked sausage of beef or beef and pork, with or without casing; hot dog; wiener.

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Frankfurter ² American  

[frangk-fer-ter] / ˈfræŋk fər tər /

noun

1. Felix, 1882–1965, U.S. jurist, born in Austria: associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 1939–62.

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Frankfurter ¹ British  

/ ˈfræŋkˌfɜːtə /

noun

1. an inhabitant or native of Frankfurt

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frankfurter ² British  

/ ˈfræŋkˌfɜːtə /

noun

1. a light brown smoked sausage, made of finely minced pork or beef, often served in a bread roll

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Etymology

Origin of frankfurter

1890–95, < German: Frankfort sausage; see -er ¹

Explanation

A frankfurter is another name for a hot dog. It's the mild sausage served on a bun that you eat while watching a baseball game. Depending where you're from, you might call a frankfurter a frank, a wiener, or a dog. Frankfurters are pink or red sausages made of meat trimmings packed inside a thin, edible casing, and served with mustard, ketchup, or relish. The name, adopted in English during the late 19th century, reflects the German heritage of all variations on the frankfurter — it comes from Frankfurter wurst, "sausage of Frankfurt."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

frankfurter Frankfurter

Delivery to the remote Yosemite National Park post office — as evidenced by what current Yosemite Postmaster Ellen Damin calls “the great frankfurter debacle” — has never been easy.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2025

Step into any Magn or Effo gas station dotting the Faroe Islands, and you’ll likely be behind one or two other people waiting for a frankfurter.

From Salon ● Nov. 18, 2024

A proper Chicago dog is an all-beef frankfurter in a poppy seed bun with yellow mustard, sweet pickle relish, chopped white onion, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, pickled sport peppers and celery salt.

From New York Times ● Jul. 25, 2022

The annual Fourth of July frankfurter fest normally happens outside Nathan’s flagship shop in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 4, 2021

While I was pondering the matter and staring up at the window from which the can had been hurled, an old vagrant approached the wagon and pleaded for a frankfurter.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

The requirement to obtain permission had gone largely unnoticed until it was reported by the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper on Friday.

From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2026

At Harvard Law School, “Pop,” as his grandson called him, became an intimate of Felix Frankfurter, the future U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026

Brownell, Frankfurter delivered the opinion of the court supporting expatriation by beginning with “Petitioner, a national of the United States by birth …” Frankfurter went on to recount Perez’s history.

From Slate ● Jan. 15, 2026

“Without a free press,” said Justice Felix Frankfurter, “there can be no free society.”

From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2024

Wing tips gleaming, my hair still damp, I was flipping through the Frankfurter Allgemeine when she rolled her unthinkable bicycle in.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Related Words

• hot dog