frizz

• friz (dated)

• IPA^(key): /fɹɪz/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪz

From Middle English frysen, from Old French friser, frizer (“to frizzle, crisp, curl, ruffle, braid, touch lightly, graze, scratch”), of Proto-Germanic origin, perhaps via Old Frankish *fris (“curl”), from Proto-Germanic *frisaz (“frizzy, curly”). Cognate with Old Frisian frisle, frēsle ("the hair of the head, lock of hair, curl, ringlet"; > North Frisian friessle, fressle (“hair, horse's tail”), West Frisian frisseljen (“braid of hair, braid”)), Old English frīs (“crisped, curled”).

frizz (third-person singular simple present frizzes, present participle frizzing, simple past and past participle frizzed)

1. (intransitive) Of hair, to form into a mass of tight curls.
2. (transitive) To curl; to make frizzy.
   • 1660 December 2 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “November 22nd, 1660”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume I, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893, →OCLC:

     with her hair frized short up to her ears

   • 1937, John Betjeman, Slough:

     In labour-saving homes, with care, / Their wives frizz out peroxide hair.

   • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

     There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […]

3. To form into little burs, knobs, or tufts, as the nap of cloth.
4. To make (leather) soft and of even thickness by rubbing, as with pumice stone or a blunt instrument.
5. To fry, cook, or sear with a sizzling noise; to sizzle.

• friseur
• frizzle

From Middle English fryse, from the verb. See above.

frizz (countable and uncountable, plural frizzes)

1. A mass of tightly curled or unruly hair.

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “frizz”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “frizz”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Unadapted borrowing from English frizz.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɾiθ/ [ˈfɾiθ] (Spain)
• IPA^(key): /ˈfɾis/ [ˈfɾis] (Latin America, Philippines)
• Rhymes: -iθ (Spain)
• Rhymes: -is (Latin America, Philippines)
• Syllabification: frizz

frizz m (uncountable)

1. frizz (of hair)
   • 2017 November 25, Nural Cokcetin and Shona Blain, “La miel de manuka y sus beneficios: qué es, sus mitos y verdades”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     La miel de manuka, aparentemente, también puede aumentar la energía, "desintoxicar" el organismo, reducir el colesterol, evitar la diabetes, mejorar el sueño, tonificar la piel, reducir la pérdida del cabello e incluso prevenir el "frizz" y las puntas abiertas de los cabellos.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.