Word.ws English Dictionary

frizz

/fɹɪz/

frizz verb: of hair, to form into a mass of tight curls.

Verb

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.
    • with her hair frized short up to her ears1660 December 1 (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...
    • In labour-saving homes, with care, / Their wives frizz out peroxide hair.1937, John Betjeman, Slough
  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.

Noun

frizz (countable and uncountable, plural frizzes)

  1. A mass of tightly curled or unruly hair.

frizz meaning in Tamil and Arabic

frizz in Tamil

சுருள் முடி

frizz in Arabic

of hair: to form into a mass of curls
تَجْعِيْد tajʕīd

Forms of frizz

Verb
third-person singular presentfrizzes
present participlefrizzing
past participlefrizzed
pastfrizzed
alternative form (dated)friz
Noun
pluralfrizzes

Past tense of frizz: frizzed

Origin of frizz

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”).

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

Words formed from frizz

Words that rhyme with frizz

32 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about frizz

What does frizz mean?
Frizz means of hair, to form into a mass of tight curls.
What is frizz in Tamil?
Frizz in Tamil is சுருள் முடி. See Frizz meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is frizz?
Frizz can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce frizz?
Frizz is pronounced /fɹɪz/.
What is the past tense of frizz?
The past tense of frizz is frizzed.

Words near frizz in the dictionary

  1. frizette
  2. frizettes
  3. frizing
  4. Frizinghall
  5. Frizington
  6. frizz
  7. frizz up
  8. frizzante
  9. frizzantes
  10. frizzed
  11. frizzed up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frizz (page history and authors); frizz (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: en-us-frizz.ogg.

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