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frazzle

/ˈfɹæz(ə)l/verb, noun

frazzle is a verb meaning “To fray or wear down, especially at the edges” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-R-A-Z-Z-L-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 26 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does frazzle mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To fray or wear down, especially at the edges.

    The new puppy has been chewing on everything, and my favorite afghan has become frazzled.

  2. 2

    To drain emotionally or physically.

    After dealing with the children all day, I just can’t help feeling frazzled.

noun

  1. 1

    informalA burnt fragment; a cinder or crisp.

    The bacon was burned to a frazzle.

  2. 2

    informalThe condition or quality of being frazzled; a frayed end.

  3. 3

    A messy situation or scene.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce frazzle?

  • /ˈfɹæz(ə)l/

Frazzle has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-frazzle.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-frazzle.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of frazzle

  • frazzles present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • frazzling participle, present
  • frazzled participle, past
  • frazle

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is frazzle?

Frazzle appears about once in every 26 million words in written English, the 155,937th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Words people confuse with frazzle

Sounds like: frazil (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Where does frazzle come from?

Originally an East Anglian word. Either from a variant of the now obsolete fazle (“to unravel”), altered due to influence from fray, or from a blend of fazle and fray. fazle comes from earlier fasel, which was inherited from Middle English facelyn (“[of the end of a rope, or of cloth] to unravel”). Middle English facelyn was a verbal derivative of the noun fasylle (“frayed edge”), which was in turn a derivative (with the diminutive suffix -el) of Old English fæs (“fringe, border”), from Proto-West Germanic *fas, from Proto-Germanic *fasōn. Related to German Faser (“fibre”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).