Word.ws English Dictionary

stir-fry

/ˈstɝfɹaɪ/

stir-fry verb: to fry quickly in hot oil whilst constantly stirring, especially in a wok or similar pan.

stir-fry: to fry quickly in hot oil whilst constantly stirring, especially in a wok or similar pan
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

stir-fry (third-person singular simple present stir-fries, present participle stir-frying, simple past and past participle stir-fried)

  1. (transitive) 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 wok1998, “Intergalactic”, performed by Beastie Boys

Noun

stir-fry (countable and uncountable, plural stir-fries or stir-frys)

  1. Food cooked in this manner.
  2. 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.2004, Jyl Steinback, Supermarket Gourmet, Perigee Trade, →ISBN
    • 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.2025 August 12, Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas, “Improving the "Western Weeknight Stir Fry"”, in Chinese Cooking Demystified

stir-fry meaning in Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian and Thai

stir-fry in Tagalog

fry something quickly in hot oil
gisa
dish
ginisa

stir-fry in Malay

fry something quickly in hot oil
goreng kilas

stir-fry in Indonesian

fry something quickly in hot oil
gongseng, oseng

stir-fry in Thai

fry something quickly in hot oil
ผัด pàt
dish
ผัด pàt
More languagesFewer languages
stir-fry in Vietnamese
xào

Forms of stir-fry

Verb
third-person singular presentstir-fries
present participlestir-frying
past participlestir-fried
paststir-fried
alternative formstirfry
alternative formstir fry
Noun
pluralstir-fries
pluralstir-frys

Origin of stir-fry

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

Questions about stir-fry

What does stir-fry mean?
Stir-fry means to fry quickly in hot oil whilst constantly stirring, especially in a wok or similar pan.
What is stir-fry in Tagalog?
Stir-fry in Tagalog is gisa, ginisa. See Stir-fry meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is stir-fry?
Stir-fry can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce stir-fry?
Stir-fry is pronounced /ˈstɝfɹaɪ/ (US).
What is the past tense of stir-fry?
The past tense of stir-fry is stir-fried.

Words near stir-fry in the dictionary

  1. stir-crazy
  2. stir-fried
  3. stir-fried ice cream
  4. stir-fried ice creams
  5. stir-fries
  6. stir-fry
  7. stir-frying
  8. stir-frys
  9. Stir-up Sunday
  10. stirabout
  11. stirabouts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stir-fry (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-stir-fry.wav.

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