Word.ws English Dictionary

freedom fries

freedom fries noun: french fries.

freedom fries: french fries
Image: User Ieverhart on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

freedom fries pl (plural only)

  1. (US, dated, humorous, plural, plural-only, rare) French fries.
    • [Q.]“Freedom fries” is a symbol of anti-French feeling. Does that sort of thing gall you?
    • [A.]Higonnet: […] Again, one has to distinguish between the public situation, in which a sense of hostility to things French is quite severe, and the private situation inside the university world where, when people talk about freedom fries, it's a big joke.2003 March 22, Joseph Rosenbloom, quoting Patrice Higonnet, “Europeans in America: Freedom fries and raw nerves”, in International Herald Tribune

Origin of freedom fries

Blend of freedom + French fries. Originated at Cubbie's, a restaurant in Beaufort, North Carolina (owner Neal Rowland) in February 2003. "It was never about politics," Rowland said of his initial decision to rename French fries "freedom fries." "It was about supporting our troops. Nothing has changed here. We still support our troops, and we still call them freedom fries."

Questions about freedom fries

What does freedom fries mean?
Freedom fries means french fries.
What part of speech is freedom fries?
Freedom fries is a noun.

Words near freedom fries in the dictionary

  1. freedom fighting
  2. freedom fights
  3. freedom fine
  4. freedom fines
  5. freedom freckles
  6. freedom fries
  7. freedom gas
  8. freedom is not free
  9. freedom isn't free
  10. freedom kiss
  11. freedom kissed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: freedom fries (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-freedom fries.wav.

Cite this entry: “freedom fries.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/freedom_fries. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.