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Synonyms

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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

I clear my schedule and hole up in the library, only to fritter away hours doing everything but writing.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026

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

From BBC • Oct. 16, 2025

He didn't just fritter away at least $834 million in cash — the reporting showed he was at least $421 million in debt.

From Salon • Dec. 22, 2022

But Broadway stardom of his caliber is too precious to fritter away on a star turn.

From Los Angeles Times • May 2, 2022

“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

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.