fritter away

fritter away (third-person singular simple present fritters away, present participle frittering away, simple past and past participle frittered away)

1. (transitive) To squander or waste.
2. (transitive) To decrease in an incremental way without hindrance.
   • 1839, Charles Dickens, chapter 6, in Nicholas Nickleby:

     “There is little need,” said the monk, with a meaning look, “to fritter away the time in gewgaws.”

   • 1890, James M. Barrie, chapter 4, in My Lady Nicotine:

     I had been frittering away my money, too, on luxuries.

   • 1925-29, Mahadev Desai (translator), M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I, chapter xv:

     Meanwhile my friend had not ceased to worry about me. His love for me led him to think that, if I persisted in my objections to meat-eating, I should not only develop a weak constitution, but should remain a duffer, because I should never feel at home in English society. When he came to know that I had begun to interest myself in books on vegetarianism, he was afraid lest these studies should muddle my head; that I should fritter my life away in experiments, forgetting my own work, and become a crank.