different between frizzle vs frazzle

English

Alternative forms

• frizle, frisle, frizel, frizil

Etymology

From frizz +? -le. Cognate with Old Frisian frisle, fresle (“head of the hair, lock of hair”). More at frizz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f??z?l/
• Rhymes: -?z?l

Verb

frizzle (third-person singular simple present frizzles, present participle frizzling, simple past and past participle frizzled)

1. (transitive) To fry something until crisp and curled.
   • 1884, Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking

     Drain and heat it [shaved smoked beef] in one tablespoonful of hot butter, to curl or frizzle it.

2. (transitive) To scorch.
3. (intransitive) To fry noisily, sizzle.

4. (transitive, intransitive) To curl or crisp, as hair; to frizz; to crinkle.
   • 1599, Thomas Dekker, Old Fortunatus, London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1904, Act I, Scene 2, p. 22, [1]

     Now am I prouder of this poverty, which I know is mine own, than a waiting gentlewoman is of a frizzled groatsworth of hair, that never grew on her head.

   • 1713, John Gay, The Fan

     Who there frequents at these unmodish hours,
     But ancient matrons with their frizzled towers

Noun

frizzle (plural frizzles)

1. A curl; a lock of hair crisped.
   • 1911, Jack London, The Whale Tooth

     The frizzle-headed man-eaters were loath to leave their fleshpots so long as the harvest of human carcases was plentiful. Sometimes, when the harvest was too plentiful, they imposed on the missionaries by letting the word slip out that on such a day there would be a killing and a barbecue.

Anagrams

• Fizzler, fizzler

English

Etymology

Originally an East Anglian word. Either from a variant of the now obsolete fazle (“to unravel”), altered due to influence from fray, or from a blend of fazle and fray. fazle comes from earlier fasel, which was inherited from Middle English facelyn (“[of the end of a rope, or of cloth] to unravel”). Middle English facelyn was a verbal derivative of the noun fasylle (“frayed edge”), which was in turn a derivative (with the diminutive suffix -el) of Old English fæs (“fringe, border”), from Proto-West Germanic *fas, from Proto-Germanic *fas?n.

Related to German Faser (“fibre”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fræzl?/
• Rhymes: -æz?l

Verb

frazzle (third-person singular simple present frazzles, present participle frazzling, simple past and past participle frazzled)

1. (transitive) To fray or wear down, especially at the edges.
   • 1887, Joel Chandler Harris, Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches

     Her hair was of a reddish-gray color, and its frazzled and tangled condition suggested that the woman had recently passed through a period of extreme excitement.

2. (transitive) To drain emotionally or physically.

3. (transitive) to burn

Noun

frazzle (plural frazzles)

1. (informal) A burnt fragment; a cinder or crisp.

   The bacon was burned to a frazzle.

2. (informal) The condition or quality of being frazzled; a frayed end.
   • 1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous Chapter III

     My fingers are all cut to frazzles.

   • 1886-90, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History

     Gordon had sent word to Lee that he "had fought his corps to a frazzle.