frying

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of cooking food in hot fat or oil.

   Frying gives the chicken a crisp, golden coating.

   Too much frying can leave a greasy film on the stovetop.

   Note

   Here frying becomes countable, with the plural fryings. The plural is where it earns its keep, describing repeated rounds of cooking or the traces left by meals. Julia Moskin, writing on fried chicken in the New York Times in 2009, has chefs testing "multiple fryings" of a batter. Tom Lamont in 2020 finds "signs of recent roastings and fryings," a natural pairing.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of fry.

   He was frying onions when the smoke alarm went off.

   They are frying dumplings at the market stall.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of fry, not just the kitchen one. In casual speech you can be frying in the heat, and a power surge can be frying a circuit board. US slang uses it for death in the electric chair. As a gerund it still takes a direct object (frying onions, with no 'of'), which separates it from the countable noun.

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