French fries (North American English, sometimes capitalized), fries, or french-fried potatoes and, in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, chips are thin strips of deep-fried potato. North Americans often refer to any elongated pieces of fried potatoes as fries, while in other parts of the world, long slices of fried potatoes are sometimes called fries to contrast them with the thickly cut strips, which are often referred to as chips.