french-fried potatoes
- noun
- /frɛntʃ fraɪd pəˈteɪtoʊz/
- The kids enjoyed their meal of fish and french-fried potatoes at the picnic.
Examples
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She loves to dip her french-fried potatoes in ketchup when they are hot.
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Potatoes, French fries, French fries, fried potatoes, fried potatoes.
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At the restaurant, I ordered a burger with a side of french-fried potatoes.
Synonyms
Long thin pieces of potato that are fried in hot oil and often served with ketchup
Thick fried potato pieces eaten hot as a snack or side
Thin pieces of potato fried in oil and served hot as a side
Thin pieces of potato cooked in hot oil until crispy and served as a side
Thin crispy pieces of potato that are fried and eaten as a snack or side
How Thick
Surface Forms
Morphology
french-fried + potato
The meaning is compositionally transparent: a B1 learner who knows 'potato' and the words 'French' + 'fried' can infer that these are potatoes fried in the French style (i.e., deep-fried strips). This construction is cross-linguistically common and follows straightforward adjective+noun composition, so the sense is immediately recoverable from the parts.
Etymology
French-fried potatoes comes from a cooking verb. To french means 'to cut into thin strips', so french-fried potatoes are potatoes cut that way and fried in oil.