fritter

t. (FRITTER, 8.] 1. Lit.: To cut meat, ., into small pieces to be fried. 2. Fig .: To break up into small particles, pieces, or fragments. To fritter away : To waste away by little and little, frivolously, or in trifles. "How prologues into prefaces decay, And these to notes are frittered quite away." Pope: Dunciad , i. 277, 278. fritt-ing, pr . par.ora. [FRIT, v.] fritting-furnace, s . Gla -mak.: A reverberatory furnace in which the materials for making gla are calcined (fritted) as a proce preliminary to melting. The object is to effect a partial union of the silicic acid and alkali, to avoid volatilization of the latter in the subsequent vitrification. The materials (sand, chalk, soda-ash, and cullet) being introduced into the furnace, the temperature is gradually raised for three hours. The pasty mixture is stirred, and the temperature increased to incipient fusion. The stuff is then raked out and transferred to the melting-pot, or is placed in cast-iron trays, cut into blocks with a spade, and stored away as frit-bricks.