Contextualizebeta

stir-fry

verb
/ˈstɝfɹaɪ/US

Etymology

From stir + fry. Coined by American physician Buwei Yang Chao in 1945, in How to Cook and Eat in Chinese.

  1. derived from fricō — “to rub”
  2. derived from froiz
  3. derived from *(s)per-✻
  4. derived from *fraiwą✻ — “seed, semen, offspring”
  5. derived from frjó — “seed, semen”
  6. inherited from frie — “spawn of fish, young or small fish, offspring, progeny, children”
  7. compounded as stir-fry — “stir + fry”

Definitions

  1. To fry quickly in hot oil whilst constantly stirring, especially in a wok or similar pan.

    • If you try to knock me, you'll get mocked / I'll stir-fry you in my wok

  2. Food cooked in this manner.

  3. Any of a class of dishes based on Chinese cuisine, typically comprising strips of meat,…

    Any of a class of dishes based on Chinese cuisine, typically comprising strips of meat, vegetable and/or noodles, stir-fried and served coated in a sticky sauce.

    • 16-oz. pkg. vegetable stir-fry mix […] Combine vegetable broth, water, stir-fry mix, soy sauce and sugar in a large saucepot; stir to mix.
    • And so, the ‘western weeknight stir fry’ tends to aim for that sort of consistency — dutifully mixing together a ‘stir fry sauce’ laden with all of their seasoning, and a non-negligible amount of cornstarch.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for stir-fry. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA