cooked in a pan or on a griddle over direct heat, usually in fat or oil.
Slang.
intoxicated from drugs; high.
exhausted or incapacitated through intemperance; burned-out.
First recorded in 1350–1400, for the adjective
Things that are fried are cooked in very hot fat or oil. You can order fried rice at a Chinese restaurant, or fried clams at your favorite seafood place. Some foods are lightly stir fried, while others are submerged in boiling oil and deep fried. At a state fair, there are offerings including fried dough and fried chicken, and it's even possible to eat fried candy bars or fried ice cream. Colloquially, someone who's exhausted might say, "I'm totally fried." Fried comes from the verb fry, which has the Latin root frigere, both "to fry" and "to roast."
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Don’t be afraid of any crackling; cumin seeds should sizzle when fried.
From Salon • Jun. 7, 2026
"For the next week we just had tuna every day, it was a bit like Forrest Gump and the shrimp, we had curried tuna, fried tuna, battered tuna, beer-battered tuna, raw tuna."
From BBC • Jun. 6, 2026
One night he treated friends to shrimp, clams, fried potatoes and ouzo on the waterfront, upsetting elderly, likely famished, passersby.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 31, 2026
Café do Capa sells capybara-shaped fried foods, capybara-themed cupcakes, capybara gifts.
From Slate • May 27, 2026
In the end we bought the fried pancakes, one each, paying six annas for the three, and four annas for two rice cakes.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
