French fries (American English), chips, fries, finger chips, or French-fried potatoes are batons of deep-fried potato. In the United States and most of Canada, the term fries refers to any elongated pieces of fried potatoes, while in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand, long, thinly cut elongated strips of fried potatoes are sometimes called shoestring to distinguish them from the more thickly cut strips called chips.