sizzles

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of sizzle.

   The steak sizzles on the grill as the chef brushes it with butter.

   A drop of water sizzles instantly when it touches the molten metal.

   Note

   One form covers the verb's literal and figurative uses. Most often it takes no object: fat sizzles in the pan, and a performance that dazzles sizzles too. With an object it becomes the cook's informal verb, as in she sizzles the onions in butter. The excitement meaning is countable here in a way it never is for the plural noun, where that sense has no plural at all.

   She sizzles the onions in butter before adding the rice.

   Her final number sizzles from the first bar to the last.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of sizzle.

   A series of sharp sizzles announced that the steaks had finally touched the skillet.

   The recording captured the faint sizzles of fat rendering over the open flame.

   Note

   Only the countable meanings of sizzle take this plural: separate bursts of the hissing sound fat makes in a pan, the bouts of cooking that produce it, and, by ellipsis, sizzle reels. The meaning of zing or excitement is uncountable, so a show has sizzle, never sizzles. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb. An article, a number or an adjective in front marks the noun.

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