Here are 3 examples:
Fried egg, fried rice, fried chicken
All these “fry” are different. If you were to use the “fry” in fried rice to fry an egg, you’d get scrambled egg. Fried chicken is done by submerging it in oil, which you won’t do with fried egg or fried rice.
This post is made from the perspective of a Cantonese/Chinese speaker. We have different words for these different types of “fry” (煎, 炒, 炸 respectively)
(Turns out I did post it in the wrong sub and I didn’t realize, and now I feel very stupid. Photon UI has once again screwed me over. Got mad for no reason.)
A “deep fry” is distinguished by totally submerging the food in oil, as opposed to a shallow fry (less often said, but still used) where something is fried in hot oil, but not enough to totally cover it. I thiiiiink Mandarin makes a similar distinction with the use of “broad oil” versus “bottom oil”, but I don’t speak Mandarin and I’m taking that from the rough translations from Chinese cooking videos I watch.