fritter away

Idioms  

1. Squander or waste little by little; wear down gradually. For example, She frittered away her salary on odds and ends and saved nothing. This expression was first recorded in Alexander Pope's Dunciad (1728): “How prologues into prefaces decay, And these to notes are fritter'd quite away.”

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fritter away

For now, however, many young workers should still be able to find positions so they can afford to fritter away their youth, as is tradition.

From Barron's ● May 29, 2026

Arsenal had led the Premier League by as many as nine points, only to fritter away its advantage and briefly fall out of first in late April.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026

He called the party a “mess” and wondered how its leaders might fritter away the momentum.

From Salon ● Nov. 6, 2025

But in recent years, that shame has started to fritter away - at least in some quarters.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2025

“You don’t mess around like that. You just don’t fritter away all your luck.”

From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien