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frizz

/fɹɪz/verb, noun

frizz is a verb meaning “Of hair, to form into a mass of tight curls” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-R-I-Z-Z and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does frizz mean?

verb

  1. 1

    Of hair, to form into a mass of tight curls.

  2. 2

    To curl; to make frizzy.

  3. 3

    To form into little burs, knobs, or tufts, as the nap of cloth.

  4. 4

    To make (leather) soft and of even thickness by rubbing, as with pumice stone or a blunt instrument.

  5. 5

    To fry, cook, or sear with a sizzling noise; to sizzle.

noun

  1. 1

    A mass of tightly curled or unruly hair.

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

How do you pronounce frizz?

  • /fɹɪz/

Frizz has one syllable (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-frizz.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of frizz

  • frizzes present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • frizzing participle, present
  • frizzed participle, past

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

How common is frizz?

Frizz appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 59,387th 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).

Frizz in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Germankräuseln, verwuscheln (of hair: to form into a mass of curls), aufrauen (to form into little burs, knobs, or tufts, as…), Krause (mass of hair)
Spanishencresparse (of hair: to form into a mass of curls), frizz, crespo, encrespamiento, encrespadura (mass of hair), encrespar (to curl; to make frizzy)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does frizz come from?

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”).

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